I Wish This Baby Was Gone From My Memory

Gone Baby Gone by Ben Affleck is quite the disaster of a movie. Oh, it starts off well enough as a straightforward reflection on Bostonian society and the white trash that populate it. Then the first third of the movie ends and its preposterous twists send it spiraling down the crapper. There isn't much point in taking the time to establish the believable real-world, down and dirty Dorchester with the myriad of "ugly" and "real" extras as its citizens if the plot turns into Law & Order: SVU on mushrooms. Between the carny coke-head molester family and Casey's lady-friend wanting to leave a little girl in the custody of a psychotic mastermind, the story loses any shred of believability it had. And I'm not buying Ben Affleck's directorial ability either, especially when he resorts to playing dialogue over montage scenes to get off the hook from having to actually do some storytelling. The overall acting is competent enough, but Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman are the only ones who seems to notice the absurdity of what their making, and they portray their characters as such. And while it's certainly entertaining to see Beadie, Omar, Silas Adams, and Iris Crowe in new rolls, not even a cast plucked from HBO's greatest hits could save this one. In fact it kind of sucks knowing Ben and I like the same TV shows. (D)