Robin reviewed “Gone Baby Gone” a few weeks back and it has been on my list to watch ever since. It has also been generally very well received, so I was really looking forward to it, especially since I really love a movie that poses an ethical dilemma.
For me though, this movie just did not hit the spot. In fact, I hated the first hour so much that I *almost* turned it off.
Why? Well, to start with, Casey Affleck’s voice drove me absolutely MAD, the guy cannot pronounce his words. Instead something sounding half way between the kid from “The Year My Voice Broke” and Dirty Harry drips out.
Somehow his character has all this “street cred”, despite being a largely un-charismatic, poor white boy from the ghetto made good, who does not seem particularly “street-wise”. This cred enables him to investigate the kidnap of a young girl by going where the police cannot.
To me, this, not uncommon, plot device gives the story a “get our of jail free card”. Whenever they hit a dead-end, one of his old homeboys from the hood comes out of nowhere shouting “Dawg this, and dawg that”, “yo, yo, yo, my brother get your gac and lets go get us some nasty shit kidnapper types who I just sold a kilo to, yo, yo, yo”. Of course this comes with all that macho, bravado crap that makes me wonder what the hell his one dimensional (or less) girlfriend (Michelle Monaghan) actually sees in him.
And this is just the first hour. Boring as hell I can tell you. When the second hour starts (and its almost exactly on the second hour) it does make the smallest of recoveries. I’m not going to go into detail, but at this point a rather far-fetched story line leaves you wondering if a poor child with a neglectful mother is not better off in the care of another, more idyllic family.
It is thought provoking, and I did spend some time on it, but then decided that I probably wouldn’t agree with most Americans about what a neglectful family versus an idyllic one actually looked like (granted the one in the movie was certainly neglectful). This of course leaves you at the top of one of those giant slippery slopes.
Actually, it was just this type of slippery slope that Australia rode and finally apologised for only this week. Just a generation ago an arrogant Government, albeit with arguably good intentions, made the assumption that they knew what was best for a child. As a result kidnapping children from their “neglectful” mothers so that they could have a “better” chance in life.
In closing, if, after watching this movie, you would NOT have called the police, start watching here: Rabbit Proof Fence, a fantastic movie, based on a true story, that comes at this ethical dilemma from a different and more powerful angle.
(Damn, I think I should have just tried to relax and enjoy this one!)