the last duel (d. ridley scott, w. nicole holofcener, ben affleck, matt damon)

Disclaimer. I am not the target market for this movie. It has been the subject of some discussion in the bars of Montevideo, suggesting that the film might have a feminist slant, so seeing it was on, randomly, in Cinemateca, I proposed to C that we go and see it. On the plus side, the film possesses an interesting structural take, revisiting the same story three times, like a wonky dialectic, in order to arrive at the synthesis of men beating the shit out of each other. Clearly men beating the shit out of each other isn’t an overly feminist premise. Neither is Ben Affleck romping with a bevy of naked teenage girls. (Editorial note: Maybe they weren’t teenagers.) Neither, to be honest, is replaying a rape scene twice, with the second occasion adding precisely nothing to our dramatic understanding of the situation. I can’t help thinking that the writers would have liked to have pushed the script in the third act, presented from the female point of view, towards the slant that the victim secretly desired the rapist, which is where her story appears to be heading. Until they realised that this was such a heinous storyline that they had to backtrack and were stuck with repeating the scene without any real rationale. All in all this felt like a boy’s story, lots of yomping and spurting blood, dressed up as a post-macho story, a dubious conceit which Affleck’s exaggerated performance reveals to be a complete contradiction. With a director as multi-faceted as Ridley Scott, as with a duel to the death, you win some, you lose some.

gone baby gone (d. ben affleck, w. affleck & aaron stockard)

The film opens, more or less, and closes, more or less, with shots of locals on the streets of Boston. When Affleck's film feels at its strongest is when he captures the look and the feel of that nowhere land in the United States where people are far from beautiful and the streets offer little to inspire. The grimier the better, and in the opening 45 minutes or so, the dialogue matches the tone in its ambition to pin down the skankiness of the slouching States.

Affleck's direction in the opening hour is surprisingly supple, and he knows how to get the most out of his outrageously talented brother, whose performance was the only reason I allowed my arm to be twisted of a Saturday night to go and see the film. I've already mentioned the talents of Casey - he has a screen presence which should end up putting most of his competitors in the shade. Oddly you can always spot a great actor by their ability to slur or mumble their lines and still make them sound like they possess all the meaning in the world. (Not necessarily great for the screenwriter but in the end we don't go to the cinema to listen to words but to look at faces, as Barthes observed.)

Sadly, after a while, the plot takes over, a plot that becomes increasingly tortuous and ultimately melodramatic. Any film which casts Morgan Freeman nowadays has to deal with the fact that the minute he appears he exudes a kind of benighted, Mandela-esque dignity which will occupy the film's moral epicentre. Although Gone Baby Gone chooses to subvert this it doesn't get away from the fact that his presence means we know we have slipped sideways from badlands Boston to the world of 'moral consequences' (ie Hollywood). Once the dramatic effects of this change of scene kick in the film is on a slow ride towards mediocrity, having promised rather more.