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GONE BABY GONE |
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The Affleck
boys are back in town |
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Ben Affleck's Directorial Debut Achieved |
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two remarkable feats. First, it shut
people up; then it got them talking.
Despite his melancholy turn in 2006's
Hollywoodland, Affleck was still
regarded by many as that square-jawed
posterboy for dumb action movies,
tabloid romances and box-office flops.
In adapting Dennis 'Mystic River'
Lehane's crime novel, he silenced the
critics, returning to his blue-collar
Boston roots to deliver a film rich in
realism and integrity. That the UK was
reeling from the Madeleine McCann case
only added to the film's authentic feel.
In a country dizzied by tabloid
prurience, this tale of the hunt for a
missing four year-old girl, with an
ending of genuine moral ambiguity,
struck a nerve and sparked fierce
debate. |
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"We always wanted this as a real movie,
set in a real place," says Affleck on
the DVD commentary, and it's tempting to
see this adaptation of Lehane's fourth
novel about Boston private investigators
Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and Angie
Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan) as Ben's
attempt to rediscover his own
authenticity after all that Bennifer
gloop. Affleck's Boston is a poetic
hyper-reality established in the opening
montage of raddled locals sitting on
their stoops in magic-hour light, while
Casey Affleck ruminates lyrically about
how people are shaped by the things they
can't change - neighbourhood and family.
If this 'realism' sometimes lurches into
grotesquerie (one early bar scene almost
outweirds the Mos Eisley cantina), for
the most part it works, thanks to the
urban grain of John Toll's
cinematography and the HBO backlot cast,
including The Wire's Amy Ryan who, as
the missing girl's deadbeat mom Helene,
brings a vital, barbed power to a
character dangerously close to
stereotype. |
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Here lies the film's key problem: Ben
Affleck has devoted himself to a plot
undeserving of such care. To land Ed
Harris as Louisiana-born 'bad cop' Remy
Bressant and have Morgan Freeman play
the head of Boston's missing children
unit is a coup, but both are merely
narrative devices to drive Lehane's
switchback plot. That the film still
succeeds is down to Affleck the
director. In treating Lehane's plot with
(too much) respect, he gives this creaky
morality tale a vitality that's more
convincing than either the cartoon
Boston of Scorsese's The Departed, or
the inert gravitas of Eastwood's Mystic
River. It marks him out as a faultless
director of actors, and a truly great
director in waiting. |
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A commentary from Ben Affleck and
co-writer Aaron Stockard in which they
discuss their obsession with
authenticity, the difficulties of Casey
Affleck and Monaghan's youth, and plot
loopholes. There are also two making
of's. a hanndful of outtakes that reveal
the problems in making Monaghan's
character work, and an extended ending
for those who want to know why Patrick
does what he does. |
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For Further
Information, please buy a copy of Empire @ myNEWS.com
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