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Rotten Watch: Gone Baby Gone

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I found it odd that such a high caliber actor would be brought in to play such a minuscule role that simply vanished halfway into the movie

Maybe I just think differently :) Didn't make the movie any less enjoyable though, was still one of the best from last year.
 
Very good movie and a better adaptation of Lehane than Eastwood did with Mystic River IMO.

The only problem I had was with how they wrote Angie- in the books she's a hell of a lot spunkier.
 
harSon said:
I found it odd that such a high caliber actor would be brought in to play such a minuscule role that simply vanished halfway into the movie

Maybe I just think differently :) Didn't make the movie any less enjoyable though, was still one of the best from last year.
Oh I did find that part odd.
 
icarus-daedelus said:
I know this is coming about 5 months after the post quoted, but dammit, I did just that and it was indeed a pretty amazing double feature. If you didn't get the chance to do that, I highly encourage you (and anyone else) to recreate this scenario at home with DVDs.

I just watched GBG tonight, really enjoyed it, and am planning on watching Jesse James tomorrow night. Casey Affleck knows how to take over a scene.

Ben Affleck's directing and the cinematography of GBG are also to be commended.
 
I watched this last night and was amazed at how good it turned out. Great acting jobs all around. Sure it wasn't even close to one of Morgan Freeman's best roles, but he played the part. Casey and Ed really put in good performances. Same goes with Amy Ryan. 90/100.
 
The feeling I got coming out of the theatre (some months ago) was that the viewer could really wind up agreeing with either Casey's character or his girlfriend, and still have a fairly strong moral argument either way. Of course, I was on the movie's (aka Casey's) side very strongly, but that made me curious whether anyone actually did side with his girlfriend?
 
Might want to spoiler it, Ford. I know you left it ambiguous but I still consider that very spoiler worthy. Anyways I thought the movie
with the girlfriend. I did too though I was moved by Casey's speech at the end and sided with him until.... I think when the kid is ripped from Freeman's wife was when it hit home. Then when Caseys character shows up at her house, it was just tragic. Casey just undid the good deed of good men and put them in jail or death to achieve essentially a worse fate for a kid. He fucked up big time. Angie was 100% right.
 
Damn what depressing movie, sometimes I wish they came with a disclaimer today. Now I will spend the rest of my birthday depressed :lol Anyway I side with miyamotofreak's spoiler opinion. Plus any person that really watched movies knew 2/3 of this film second Lionel character delivered his "plugged line" early on, way he said it the movie unraveled for me. Last 20 minutes saved this film from being just cliched gloomy crap.
 
Alucard said:
I just watched GBG tonight, really enjoyed it, and am planning on watching Jesse James tomorrow night. Casey Affleck knows how to take over a scene.

Ben Affleck's directing and the cinematography of GBG are also to be commended.
Casey's performance in Jesse James was much, much, MUCH better than in GBG.
 
Maggot9 said:
Casey's performance in Jesse James was much, much, MUCH better than in GBG.

I dunno, I thought they were both really good performances. He was amazing as Robert Ford, giving a very multi-layered and complex performance, whereas he shot from the hip on GBG, putting in a perfect street tough performance.

After watching him in those two very different films and roles, I want to say that Casey Affleck is one of film's brightest and most talented stars.
 
miyamotofreak said:
Might want to spoiler it, Ford. I know you left it ambiguous but I still consider that very spoiler worthy. Anyways I thought the movie
with the girlfriend. I did too though I was moved by Casey's speech at the end and sided with him until.... I think when the kid is ripped from Freeman's wife was when it hit home. Then when Caseys character shows up at her house, it was just tragic. Casey just undid the good deed of good men and put them in jail or death to achieve essentially a worse fate for a kid. He fucked up big time. Angie was 100% right.

The girlfriend's option is a nice Hollywood-ending option, but it's not how the real world or real justice works. Obviously the two possibilities are very similar shades of grey and neither outcome would really be satisfying to the viewer.

But in the end, in my mind, stealing a kid is illegal. The end never justifies the means.
 
I just saw this again last weekend and I have to wonder...how the fuck wasn't this at least nominated for Best Picture? At the very least, it was a much better film than Michael Clayton and Juno (and I would also argue it was better than No Country for Old Men, a film that just really frustrates me). It's downright criminal that this movie didn't get some kind of recognition.

Think I'll watch the Assassination of Jesse James this weekend, I was surprisingly impressed with Casey Affleck.
 
Ford Prefect said:
The feeling I got coming out of the theatre (some months ago) was that the viewer could really wind up agreeing with either Casey's character or his girlfriend, and still have a fairly strong moral argument either way. Of course, I was on the movie's (aka Casey's) side very strongly, but that made me curious whether anyone actually did side with his girlfriend?
I'm with you, but do you really think that was the movie's side, though? That last shot is pretty haunting and depressing.
 
I just watched this for the first time today. What a excellent film.

I was with Casey until I saw the last scene. That was heartbreaking. He should've left her.
 
I don't get this movie. It felt like it had one or two good gut-wrenching ideas, but that's it. The big moral dilemma could've been done in a half-hour, without all of the unnecessary tedium and dullness. Basically, this movie just didn't have enough meat to it.
 
Saw this fairly recently as well. The main thing that turned me off of it was the title. I figure if they can't bother coming up with a decent title then I can forget about liking the rest of the writing.

The movie ended up being pretty good. At first I couldn't stop laughing at how little Affleck was supposed to be some intimidating, neighborhood, badass, character. Then a little bit into the movie I just went with the flow even though the idea of him being a badass was still funny to me. He pulled it off well enough. The movie had a lot of intense scenes and the journey, though meandering, was very gripping. One of the best things was it rarely dragged - you want to keep watching.

I didn't agree with the choice at the end or with what he did to the pedo dude (why do people always kill as some sort of ultimate punishment? kneecaps, spine, johnson... any one of these spots would be a lot more awesome to shoot a person in that case), but they didn't leave a bad taste in regards to the movie as a whole.
 
Dali said:
Saw this fairly recently as well. The main thing that turned me off of it was the title. I figure if they can't bother coming up with a decent title then I can forget about liking the rest of the writing.

The movie ended up being pretty good. At first I couldn't stop laughing at how little Affleck was supposed to be some intimidating, neighborhood, badass, character. Then a little bit into the movie I just went with the flow even though the idea of him being a badass was still funny to me. He pulled it off well enough. The movie had a lot of intense scenes and the journey, though meandering, was very gripping. One of the best things was it rarely dragged - you want to keep watching.

I didn't agree with the choice at the end or with what he did to the pedo dude (why do people always kill as some sort of ultimate punishment? kneecaps, spine, johnson... any one of these spots would be a lot more awesome to shoot a person in that case), but they didn't leave a bad taste in regards to the movie as a whole.

You do understand that it's based of a book, right? It was the title of the book.
 
just saw fully this in class today...

I really can't believe anyone strongly believed Casey was wrong. They look at the solutions but don't understand the problem: The kid was kidnapped. People were murdered trying to cover it up. Lives were shattered. That's what happened. How does saying what kind of people were killed and changing who the kidnappers were all of a sudden make the act justifiable? That's crazy. What if a well-off mother had her kid taken by a billionaire's family. The kid is gonna have a better life, but, um, the kid was fucking kidnapped.

There were other ways to go about this. The mother did drugs, how come no one tried to get her put away for it? There were legal workarounds that could've lead to the same result. But, I suppose that's the irony of it all. The cops are the crooks, stealing children and stealing money to benefit themselves. And the ultimate irony, the guy who wasn't a cop was the only one who did it by the book. Casey totally Rorschach'ed this movie (which is why I thought Freeman would killed him, Dr. M style) and while the kid may not have a better life, he gets to keep an eye on her. That's what I thought the final scene said. He'll always be watching over her, no matter who really has custody over her. He'll always be there. And since he's the only one who could bring himself to do the right thing, you know she's safer with him than anyone else.
 
Variable said:
You do understand that it's based of a book, right? It was the title of the book.
I wasn't aware that it was a novel first, but what difference does that make? I still think the title is lame.
 
SpeedingUptoStop said:
just saw fully this in class today...

I really can't believe anyone strongly believed Casey was wrong. They look at the solutions but don't understand the problem: The kid was kidnapped. People were murdered trying to cover it up. Lives were shattered. That's what happened. How does saying what kind of people were killed and changing who the kidnappers were all of a sudden make the act justifiable? That's crazy. What if a well-off mother had her kid taken by a billionaire's family. The kid is gonna have a better life, but, um, the kid was fucking kidnapped.

There were other ways to go about this. The mother did drugs, how come no one tried to get her put away for it? There were legal workarounds that could've lead to the same result. But, I suppose that's the irony of it all. The cops are the crooks, stealing children and stealing money to benefit themselves. And the ultimate irony, the guy who wasn't a cop was the only one who did it by the book. Casey totally Rorschach'ed this movie (which is why I thought Freeman would killed him, Dr. M style) and while the kid may not have a better life, he gets to keep an eye on her. That's what I thought the final scene said. He'll always be watching over her, no matter who really has custody over her. He'll always be there. And since he's the only one who could bring himself to do the right thing, you know she's safer with him than anyone else.

Fuck dude, I'm halfway through Watchmen. Did you really need to randomly spoil it in a Gone Baby Gone analogy? Wtf?
 
SpeedingUptoStop said:
just saw fully this in class today...

I really can't believe anyone strongly believed Casey was wrong. They look at the solutions but don't understand the problem: The kid was kidnapped. People were murdered trying to cover it up. Lives were shattered. That's what happened. How does saying what kind of people were killed and changing who the kidnappers were all of a sudden make the act justifiable? That's crazy. What if a well-off mother had her kid taken by a billionaire's family. The kid is gonna have a better life, but, um, the kid was fucking kidnapped.

There were other ways to go about this. The mother did drugs, how come no one tried to get her put away for it? There were legal workarounds that could've lead to the same result. But, I suppose that's the irony of it all. The cops are the crooks, stealing children and stealing money to benefit themselves. And the ultimate irony, the guy who wasn't a cop was the only one who did it by the book. Casey totally Rorschach'ed this movie (which is why I thought Freeman would killed him, Dr. M style) and while the kid may not have a better life, he gets to keep an eye on her. That's what I thought the final scene said. He'll always be watching over her, no matter who really has custody over her. He'll always be there. And since he's the only one who could bring himself to do the right thing, you know she's safer with him than anyone else.

Yeah he Rorschach'ed them. But Rorschach was wrong too. Casey's vanity, his sense that his right is the true moral right, his myopic black and white view of things are what prevented him from turning away. What did turning the kid in accomplish? Did it bring back the lives of the worthless drug dealer or the mother's, low-life, loser, boyfriend? Was it what's best for the little girl? No. The only thing it did was ruin the little girl's life, satiate a mother's sense of being wronged (I think this is much higher on the list of emotions the mother felt which tells you something about the mother), and sully the name of a retired Captain who would have done better for the girl than the real mother ever will.

I also think the comparisons you are trying to draw between a crackhead, slut, absentee mother and a stable household - if in fact this "well-off mother" you speak of resides in a stable household - are a bit misguided.
 
Just watched it. Morally challenging. I loved it.

Personally, I side with everyone else. I understand where Patrick is coming from, but that's just one of those things you let go. He himself got a reprieve when he killed that Child Molester. He ruined 4-5 other lives, to fix this one girl's life. I guess it all just comes down to what the law says is right vs. what your heart says is right. It's similar to the logic vs. faith battles that go on.
 
I dunno...seems like I'm the only one who didn't like this movie. I mean, I went in wanting to like it, and Casey's perfromance was good, and there were some good scenes, but in the end I found the whole thing kind of ridiculous. No way is this best picture material...
 
bump*


just saw this and the moral challenge that the film makes for me - and the conclusion makes this a great film. What a horrible horrible downer of a movie... I'm in the camp of

casey affleck's character making a big mistake

I think personally if I went through that process, I would have chosen to go the other way... it doesn't absolve what
freeman + lionel + remmy 's character did but the end result ... sort of ruined everyone's life? And if the central concern of this movie is about the welfare of the children, you really have to wonder.


the scene with the raid of the drughouse + the child abuser and the way it was put together and resolved was quite sickening to me.
Hard to watch.


LOL. the whole point of the movie is not to know anything going in... you pretty much get the story as the central characters get it. Quite complex and well done. So there, Spoilered everything.

great movie. One of the most morally challenging and demanding films I've had to sit through inwhile. Its really worth watching so if you haven't for whatever reasons, see it.
 
Whoompthereitis said:
I dunno...seems like I'm the only one who didn't like this movie. I mean, I went in wanting to like it, and Casey's perfromance was good, and there were some good scenes, but in the end I found the whole thing kind of ridiculous. No way is this best picture material...
I didn't like it. I could stand rewatching for a more updated review.

I wasn't getting into the plot as far as I remember and I hate Casey's acting. His voice is horrible.
 
Wow people like this movie? I don't know... It wasn't terrible but if you have read the book... Holy shit how they fucked it up... It's not even funny.

If you like the movie you really need to read the book. Actually read the book even if you hate the movie...

Usually I hate being some kind of elitist saying how much the book is better then the movie but in this case it needs to be said. The story deserved to be handled better.
 
Don't know what to say to the hate to this movie. I don't think film-movie adaptions normally pan out because of the difference in medium but I didn't read the book and thought the film was great.


http://au.rottentomatoes.com/m/gone_baby_gone/


if anything, its gone up to

Gone Baby Gone (2007)


94 %
Tomatometer

Consensus: Ben Affleck proves his directing credentials in this gripping dramatic thriller, drawing strong performances from the excellent cast and bringing working-class Boston to the screen.

um, yes... and at..

IMDB.com 7.9/10


either way - both not a bad score at all
 
PuppetSlave said:
Wow people like this movie? I don't know... It wasn't terrible but if you have read the book... Holy shit how they fucked it up... It's not even funny.

If you like the movie you really need to read the book. Actually read the book even if you hate the movie...

Usually I hate being some kind of elitist saying how much the book is better then the movie but in this case it needs to be said. The story deserved to be handled better.

I read the book before I saw the movie and I prefer the latter.
 
CajoleJuice said:
*raises hand*

I was like, "Wtf, that was short!" :lol

Yeah me too. and then it went on, and on but in a good way. I was quite suprised at each stage of each reveal

pedo hunt
= !!!!

lionel discovery---> amanda recovery
= !!!!

post amanda return piece
= !!!!


at each stage, the movie also could have ended and been good (and more satisfying than no country for old men).
 
ItsInMyVeins said:
I read the book before I saw the movie and I prefer the latter.

Why is that? The major part that irritated me the most I think, was how much of a silent sidekick Angie was in the movie compared to the book. How many words does she say in the whole movie? She just stands there mainly through the movie.

It was two months or so I saw the movie so my memory is a bit too vague for describing specific scenes but I remember being annoyed with how the movie basically ignored large parts of the book or changing most things. Why base something of the book and just keep the bare bones. Which does not make for a terrible movie but it could have been much better. Alot of the charm just vanished.
 
Jax said:
Yeah me too. and then it went on, and on but in a good way. I was quite suprised at each stage of each reveal

pedo hunt
= !!!!

lionel discovery---> amanda recovery
= !!!!

post amanda return piece
= !!!!

I was like WTF is this shit.. they could have ended it like that though based on the title ....then the
pedo hunt
started and it got awesome.. well done affleck, well done.
 
PuppetSlave said:
Why is that? The major part that irritated me the most I think, was how much of a silent sidekick Angie was in the movie compared to the book. How many words does she say in the whole movie? She just stands there mainly through the movie.

It was two months or so I saw the movie so my memory is a bit too vague for describing specific scenes but I remember being annoyed with how the movie basically ignored large parts of the book or changing most things. Why base something of the book and just keep the bare bones. Which does not make for a terrible movie but it could have been much better. Alot of the charm just vanished.

It doesn't bother me at all if they change stuff from the book. Personally I think that's a good thing. If being true to the book means the movie might suffer then of course they ought to change stuff to make it a better fit. It was quite a while since I read the book though, but I really liked the movie. It looked good, the acting was good, the story was good. It definitely feels different, though. It's somewhat slow and has a still feeling to it, while I think the books by Lehane, most often, are more hectic.
 
ItsInMyVeins said:
It doesn't bother me at all if they change stuff from the book. Personally I think that's a good thing. If being true to the book means the movie might suffer then of course they ought to change stuff to make it a better fit. It was quite a while since I read the book though, but I really liked the movie. It looked good, the acting was good, the story was good. It definitely feels different, though. It's somewhat slow and has a still feeling to it, while I think the books by Lehane, most often, are more hectic.

Ok, I can see what you are saying.

It's true that I wanted a movie more based on the book(And I had reread it not that long before seeing the movie) and watched the movie with those expectations in my head.

Maybe I will rent it again sometime and see if I can try to appreciate it more on it's own merit.
 
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