Gone Baby Gone (2007)

Following Argo winning best picture at the Oscars last week, I decided to watch this flick.  Ben Affleck‘s directorial debut Gone Baby Gone.  I actually saw this one in the theatres with my best friend when it came out in 2007.  Of course, I didn’t know that Ben Affleck was the director but I was intrigued by the trailer. I know I’m a week late but I’ve been running a bit slow on these reviews and hopefully I’ll catch up soon enough.

Director: Ben Affleck

Cast: Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, Amy Ryan, John Ashton

This place takes place in where a little girl, Amanda McCreedy has been kidnapped and the police have been trying to find her with all their forces.  This is when the aunt and uncle of Amanda, in desperation, goes to hire a private investigator, Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and his partner, Angie (Michelle Monaghan) because they are known to have connections to the criminal side of Boston.  Much to the police’s disapproval, the captain (Morgan Freeman) however still is obliged to assign two officers, Remy Bressant (Ed Harris) and Nick Poole (John Ashton). In their investigation, they learn that Amanda’s mother, Helen(Amy Ryan) is involved in a messy situation because of her way of living and people she connects to.  The further they investigate, the more secrets get revealed and it drags them deeper and deeper into a situation that they can’t turn back anymore.  (Did I make that sound really dramatic? But thats how I felt it was..)

This movie is all about the secrets so I had to be really short with the summary so you get an idea but not really spoil this flick if you haven’t seen it.  I’ve seen The Town and I probably won’t end up catching Argo until a few months later when it might *crosses my fingers* drop a bit in price. This is an intriguing suspense drama.

Its packed with awesome performances from the cast.  Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris was amazing as usual.  This is the only movie I’ve seen of Casey Affleck and man, he’s a pretty good actor.  He had me intrigued the whole way, dragged me into every tight situation and carried every intense moment on his shoulders.  Michelle Monaghan looks really familiar, I think she was the chick in Eagle Eye and maybe some other ones that slip my memory.  She was good too although I’d have to say that she didn’t really have much to say in my recollection of it now.  I still think she did pretty decent.  I really need to start digging up some more of Casey Affleck’s roles.  Any recommendations?

This was adapted from a novel (from what I’ve read) with the same name by Dennis Lehane.  It has now been added to my to-read list.  I’m sure that if the movie can be this intriguing, the source material is probably going to be 20 times better.  At least thats the usual case, we’ll see when I get to check it out. The story was just so captivating and mysterious.  The intensity was over the top crazy.  At the end of the movie (for those who know it), it had me and my boyfriend thinking a lot.  We even engaged in a discussion about the ending at 1am  or something, which is not very often that it happens.

I would definitely recommend this movie.  I don’t know if Argo can beat it but this movie ranks higher than The Town to me so far.  The story is suspenseful, the cast is fantastic and it’ll bring you for an unpredictable and intense ride and possibly leave you with a good amount of thinking at the end.  Affleck’s career as a director is one that I respect a lot right now and I hope to see more movies from him that are as great as this one.

The Town (2010)

Director: Ben Affleck

Cast: Ben Affleck, Jeremy Renner, Rebecca Hall, Blake Lively, Jon Hamm

Set in the town of Charlestown where bank robbers are born and passed down through generations, Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck), James “Jem” Coughlin (Jeremy Renner), Gloansy and Dez are the next generation in a group that starts the story robbing a bank which results in them taking the bank manager as a hostage and then letting her go unharmed.  This starts to worry them when the FBI, especially Special Agent Frawley (Jon Hamm) gets involved and Doug decides to approach the bank manager, a woman called Claire (Rebecca Hall) and starts to fall in love with her.  Just as he wants to leave town with her, there is a big job that comes up that he has to take.  The question now is whether he’ll be able to get out of this mess and manage to leave the town.

I liked the cast a lot.  Ben Affleck, Jeremy Renner, Rebecca Hall and Jon Hamm and even many of the other characters was amazing.  They were great in their roles.  I really enjoyed that a lot.  The only person that I didn’t enjoy was Blake Lively as Coughlin’s sister and also a girl who loves Doug.  I’ve been a fan of Blake Lively in Gossip Girl and even when she did The Sisterhood of  the Traveling Pants movies.  She was fantastic in that but somehow for this one, her accent sounded forced and it bothered me because if I didn’t have the subtitles, I wouldn’t have understood what she said at all.  However, she didn’t have that much screen time so it was alright.

I’ve never been a big fan of Ben Affleck as an actor, but funny enough, I’ve been seeing his movies which he directed.  This one definitely was a good movie, maybe not a great one for me.  However, I did enjoy Gone Baby Gone so thats why I had decided to give this a shot.  Point is, even as an actor here, I found him very enjoyable.  Maybe its because this is something that he’s creating himself so there is more heart and soul that he puts into even the role he takes.  It doesn’t really matter because it works to its advantage.

Also, I felt that I enjoyed the second half of the movie a lot more than the first part.  It really takes some time to get into the whole story.  Its not that the basis is bad.  I did some research and its based on a novel called Prince of Thieves which I will add to my reading list.  As a crime thriller, I felt that it really caught my attention near the climax when things started getting bad and then eventually get to the very awesome ending.

Even though thats the case, I did sit to think about this a bit and I’d say that its definitely worth a viewing.  The good parts really more than make up for the parts that were lacking and I’m pretty sure that I would gladly sit down and watch this again.

So what do you think about The Town? How about your views on Ben Affleck as a director? Or maybe you  liked him better as an actor?