Gone, Baby, Gone

Last summer and fall I read all but one of the Dennis Lehane books back-to-back-to back-to...well, I forget how many there were, but I read them all, save Coronado.

They are all excellent. Gritty, dirty, slimey, real and not a cliched happy ending among them. Most of them involve a pair of private detectives operating out of Dorchester, Patrick Kenzie and Angie Genaro. They call it crime noir. My buddy Big Daddy Thug at Thuglit.com is a big fan, producer and propietor.

Anyway, I was excited whenGone, Baby, Gone started filming in Boston. I was a little worried, though, that the brothers Affleck--Ben directing and Casey starring as Kenize--would be less than worthy. I finally got around to seeing the movie yesterday and I needn't have worried.

Casey as Kenzie is very good. In the scenes where he confronts Cheese and faces down Big Dave and his boys at the bar he is excellent. Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris are predictably good. Cheese plays ok as a Hatian rather than the Scandinavian wanna be black, but I found the book's version more amusing/scary. Whoever played Lionel the uncle of the misssing girl, deserves kudos. He was excellent, particularly in the pivotal late scene where he faces old demons.

In terms of characters, Angie really got shortchanged. I don't blame Michelle Monoghan; she seemed perfectly capable of playing the hard boiled "don't treat me like a girl" character Lehane created. But for some reason they didn't use her that way. They didn't seem to use her enough at all, really. Most of the time she seemed simply to be following Kenzie around and acting like a girl.

Bubba, too, played by Boston rapper Slaine, was underused. Maybe they were keeping a tight leash on the novice actor. Maybe it would've been too much to play out on screen the stuff that made Bubba so good in the books. My hope for the rest of the Kenzie/Genaro movies--and there should be several--will be more Bubba.

Other than that, I think Ben did a great job. The opening montage with shots of Boston street coerners and front porches sets the scene perfectly. This is a movie about real people. Many of them fat, ugly, nasty or all of the above. The bar scene in the middle of the movie--mentioned above, when Kenize faces down Big Dave's patrons--is tremendous. Middle of the day darkness made creepy by the real but unreal faces and lives that fil the bar.

Other than Bea--played by Amy Madigan, Mrs. Ray Kinsella from Field of Dreams--the actors that use Boston accents hit them. But more than that, Affleck knows and includes the rythmy and phrases common to the Boston street. Big Dave, Helene, Dottie and Lionel all are Boston come to life when arguing. Absolutely authentic.

I really, really liked this movie. And that's not a given when I've read the book previously. I look forward to the rest of the series being put on film.