Casey Affleck's restrained dramatic performances deserve their reputation, but his comic work matters just as much to us. He needs a properly written part: the Ocean's sequels give him too little to do.
Fi1m perspective
Casey Affleck and Scott Caan argue about everything in Ocean's Eleven (2001), and their disagreements are worth waiting for. As the Malloy brothers, they give Steven Soderbergh's polished heist some welcome childishness. We laughed at their constant bickering, because Affleck and Caan make the business of refusing to agree funny in itself. His reputation for emotional restraint should not obscure how well he works when someone else is there to annoy him.
His Morgan O'Mally in Gus Van Sant's Good Will Hunting (1997) belongs to the earlier phase of ensemble parts, before the move towards dramatic leads. Those group settings do not always serve him well. In Ocean's Twelve (2004), he and several returning actors have little to do beyond joining the company, while Ocean's Thirteen (2007) sends him and Caan on an errand we kept wishing the film would leave alone. Brian Koppelman and David Levien's writing for the third film does too little with character to make those diversions worth the time.
The move into dramatic leads became clear with Patrick Kenzie in Ben Affleck's Gone Baby Gone (2007), alongside his breakthrough as Robert Ford in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007). These parts gave more room to his handling of internal conflict. As Lee Chandler in Manchester by the Sea (2016), he conveys grief through emotional shutdown, asking us to attend to how little a man can express. There is a danger in making so little visible: we can spend too much time searching for something the actor has not given us enough help to read.
We value the restraint, but we would not make it the sole measure of his acting. Soderbergh lets him be funny in Ocean's Eleven, and we would happily have had more of that in the sequels. For a first look, try Ocean's Eleven, then Manchester by the Sea when there is an appetite for a heavier evening.
Biography
Casey Affleck, born Caleb Casey McGuire Affleck-Boldt, is an American actor and the younger brother of actor Ben Affleck. He began his career as a child actor, appearing in the PBS television film Lemon Sky (1988).
Affleck appeared in three films directed by Gus Van Sant: To Die For (1995), Good Will Hunting (1997) and Gerry (2002). He played Virgil Malloy in Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven (2001), Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007). He portrayed Boris Pash in Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer (2023). Affleck received the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in Manchester by the Sea (2016).
