DVD Traffic Report: February 12, 2024

Gone Baby Gone (Miramax)

In this gripping, self-assured crime drama, Ben Affleck flexes directorial muscles that nobody knew he had (except maybe Mama Affleck). Set largely in the working-class neighborhoods of South Boston, it begins with the disappearance of a four-year-old girl from her Dorchester home and ends in deeply ambivalent territory. Frustrated by law-enforcement efforts, the girl’s aunt and uncle hire a local husband-and-wife private-investigation team (Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan) to pound the pavement for leads. Complicating matters, the girl’s mother (Amy Ryan, teriff) is a drug addict with unpleasant entanglements of her own. It takes a while to gel, but eventually works up a tension and complexity that are underscored by a taut, troubled lead performance from the director’s younger brother Casey. There’s something going on behind that character’s eyes that’s hard to figure out, even after the film’s richly suggestive final scene. It’s not a perfect movie, but there’s a depth and urgency, not to mention a flotilla of generally expert actors, that carry it over the rough spots. The elder Affleck, who doubled as co-screenwriter, avoids pretension or high seriousness — this is highly entertaining, pulpy stuff. But it generates a provocative atmosphere of moral ambiguity that lingers for days. It’s a modest film, but an excellent one. (A version of this review originally appeared in the White Plains Times.)

Buy it from Amazon.com: Gone Baby Gone or Gone Baby Gone [Blu-ray]



We Own the Night (Sony)

With the heart of Greek tragedy and the soul of film noir, We Own the Night takes an intractable situation as its premise and then spends two hours showing us bad things happening. Joaquin Phoenix is the devil-may-care Bobby Green, who manages a successful-but-shady Brooklyn nightclub — and just happens to have a brother (Mark Wahlberg) and father (Robert Duvall) in high-profile jobs with the NYPD. They could use Bobby’s help infiltrating the Russian mob, but his loyalties are elsewhere. Once Bobby wakes up to the idea that he must choose sides, We Own the Night so vividly depicts his various betrayals of trust that the sentiment expressed in the film’s final scene feels somehow both monstrous and hilarious. Whether you enjoy this will depend in part on how much you mind a script that spells every little nuance of the story out in clumsy lines of dialogue — it’s writer/director James Gray’s worst impulse. But Gray has an appealingly old-fashioned approach to filmmaking and, of course, a terrific cast. (Phoenix, in particular, has never been better.) What’s more, he devises two show-stopping action scenes that propel the film’s second half — including a stylish, heart-pounding car chase in the rain. Good stuff. (This review originally appeared in the White Plains Times.)


Buy it from Amazon.com: We Own the Night, We Own the Night [Blu-ray] or We Own the Night [UMD for PSP]