FAMILY TIES BEN AND CASEY AFFLECK DISCUSS BOSTON, BEING BROTHERS AND BASEBALL.

Byline: GLENN WHIPP

>FILM WRITER

It's a good autumn for Ben and Casey Affleck. The Red Sox are still in the hunt for the World Series title. Casey is getting the best reviews of his career for "The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford." (He plays the coward, not the outlaw.)

And the brothers have made a movie together, "Gone Baby Gone," opening Friday, a Boston-based tale of moral ambiguity that is getting strong reviews.

Ben makes his directorial debut with the movie and co-wrote the adaptation of the book by "Mystic River" author Dennis Lehane. Casey stars, playing Patrick Kenzie, a private detective investigating the disappearance of a young girl from his neighborhood. Was she kidnapped? Was the family somehow involved? And how will the investigation affect the relationship between Patrick and his lover/colleague Angie (Michelle Monaghan)?

Here brothers Ben, 35, and Casey, 32, talk about the film's themes, angry Boston waitresses and showing audiences a side of the city not seen on the likes of "Cheers."

The first thing you notice about "Gone Baby Gone" is it isn't the Boston you see on movies and TV.

Ben: Right. People go to Boston, they go to the Back Bay and the Freedom Trail and Faneuil Hall. They don't go to Dorchester.

And they go to that restaurant ... where the waitresses are really vicious and abusive?

Casey: That would be every restaurant in Boston.

True. But I'm thinking of Durgin Park. A waitress there screamed at me because my foot was an inch into the aisle.

Casey: Everyone is afraid of Boston waitresses. You wouldn't want to run into one walking down a dark alley at night.

Ben: You'd probably be scalded with chowder.

For the extras in this movie you went to the actual neighborhood bars and found some people.

Ben: Well, George Wendt wasn't available.

Yeah, these bars were places where everybody knows your name, but they still might stick a shiv in your abdomen.

Ben: We wanted to make the world seem scary and establish Casey's character as someone who could operate in that world. This is a working neighborhood. It's Boston's largest and most diverse neighborhood. That's what the Web site would tell you.

Casey: It's cops and firemen, but there's drugs and violence and crime.

Ben: It's an insular world. People share a common socio-economic background and a common worldview.

Did being from Boston help you when you were shooting the movie in these neighborhoods?

Casey: We did "Good Will Hunting" in South Boston. At first, it's exciting because people get to see Robin Williams. Then it's a pain in the ass.

Ben: We put a lot of people in the movie. That may have been our saving grace.

Casey: It's nothing like New York. We made a movie ("200 Cigarettes") there and at night people would put huge pieces of aluminum foil in their windows to reflect the light and ruin the shots. New Yorkers are very creative at expressing their annoyance.

Ben, you obviously didn't look too far in casting Casey.

Ben: He wouldn't need to work on the accent, would he? We grew up in a part of Cambridge called Central Square, which, when we were there, resembled what Dorchester is now. Back then, Cambridge was a little harder, a little bit more closed off to people who hadn't been there for a couple of generations.

So he knows the lay of the land. He's also your brother. You can push him a little harder.

Casey: I don't know about that. But you could cut to the chase. There's not a whole lot of time on the set. You could say, "I don't like what you're doing," without worrying about somebody's ego. There's a lot of conflict on movie sets. Ben and I could argue, be comfortable about it and figure it out. There's a shorthand.

Ben: We could refer to different things from the past. I could tell Casey, "It's kind of like the time we went to see Pete and we showed up and he was asleep." He'd immediately get what I was after.

How nervous were you as a first-time director?

Ben: I was nervous. There's a lot of stress. It's not something you can put training wheels on and try. You've got to make the movie and then find out if it's good. If this movie didn't work, it was going to feel really bad because I cared a lot. That was scary. It was scary to try.

Did anyone try to make you change the ending?

Ben: Some people were worried that the audience would hate the ending and so they'd hate the movie. But it has been just the opposite. People like the moral ambiguity.

Casey: It gets people talking. What Patrick faces is a lose-lose situation. It seems to me that he makes the right decision. But it just shows that sometimes you can make the right decision, you can do something that's good and it ultimately proves damaging.

Reminds me of the Sox trading for Eric Gagne.

Ben: Don't bring up Gagne.

OK, what about Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz. You thanked both of them in the closing credits.

Ben: They hit 82 home runs that summer when we were shooting. It was a lot of joy for me coming home almost every night, getting to watch a couple of bombs.

We always see Ben at Fenway Park. Are you a fan, Casey?

Casey: Completely. I actually worked at Fenway for a couple of years selling hot dogs. That was the first time I got to see a bunch of games and met some of the players and followed the season from beginning to end.

Ben: What was that? '86?

Casey: That was 1988. Morgan Magic. (Joe Morgan, not the ex-Red Hall of Famer, was the manager of the team.)

So how far are the Sox going this October?

Ben: When does this story come out?

Mid-October.

Ben: If I say anything, they'll be knocked out of the playoffs.

I figured you were doing all the promotion now so you could be at the games.

Ben: No way. That would be too much of a jinx to plan my schedule around the playoffs. The minute I'd do that, the Sox would lose and I'd have all these holes. I can't talk about that. I don't even want to think about it.

What about your own prospects? Does directing signal a new shift in your career?

Ben: I'd like to continue doing this. I'd also like to act. But there aren't that many roles of late that interest me. If a bunch of roles came along that are great and really smart, then I'd do them. But that doesn't seem likely. And I don't want to work just to work. I'd rather focus on directing. I hope this movie helps my prospects.

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

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4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) AFFLECKS

'GONE BABY GONE' BRINGS BROTHERS BACK TO BOSTON

(2) Ben Affleck, left, directed, and Casey Affleck starred in the film "Gone Baby Gone." Casey says, "There's a lot of conflict on movie sets. Ben and I could argue, be comfortable about it and figure it out. There's a shorthand."

MICHAEL OWEN BAKER>LA.COM

(3 -- 4) Casey Affleck, above, plays a private investigator looking for a kidnapped girl in "Gone Baby Gone." The film marks the directorial debut of his brother, Ben Affleck, below, who says of directing, "There's a lot of stress. It's not something you can put training wheels on and try."