The Cinema of the Four

Gone Baby Gone

While many a private detective has been said to possess my great-grandfather’s logical powers or careful observation of details, a factor that usually eludes notice was Sherlock Holmes’s intimate knowledge of his city and its people. It is a little enough thing, some might say, but in the case of “Gone Baby Gone” and detective Patrick Kenzie, being familiar with his own neighborhood makes all the difference.

Patrick Kenzie, played by Casey Affleck, is called in to help on a high-profile child abduction case by the girl’s aunt. It’s not his usual thing, and his partner Angie (Michelle Monaghan) resists getting into it. What follows is perhaps the best movie experience you’ll have all year. Patrick and Angie are, perhaps, the two prettiest people in the whole of “Gone Baby Gone,” and the only ones who look like movie stars, except maybe Morgan Freeman who always looks like Morgan Freeman to even the most Watson-like observer. Director Ben Affleck (yes, that Ben Affleck) creates a cultural texture in this film that is quite amazing. Familiar movie faces like Ed Harris and John Ashton take on looks that would make one thing they were pulled out of a Boston neighborhood, and you find yourself wondering if it’s really them. But there’s more to “Gone Baby Gone” than just the look.

No other film this year has given us quite the moral dilemmas in such close, personal range as this one. Where other Oscar-ranked films leave you wondering “Just what were they thinking?” this one brings you into each character’s head – you know exactly why they’re making the choices they make, and make you wonder what choice you’d be making. You sympathize with an amazing number of characters in this movie (except for those few who truly, definitely need shooting), and that’s a rare thing. After watching Ben Affleck play normal everyday doofuses for so many years on the screen, it’s very hard to get used to the idea of him as a genius director, but he very well may have it in him.

Definitely see this one.

What Great-grandfather Sherlock would have said about this one:
“Well, I think that you are in the right.”