Movie Review for Gone Baby Gone (2007)

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Review #549 of 365
Movie Review of Gone Baby Gone (2007) [R] 114 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $14.00
Where Viewed: Harkins Ciné Capri at Northfield 18, Denver, CO
When 1st Seen: 20 October 2007
Time: 4:40 pm
DVD Release Date: 12 February 2008 (click date to purchase or pre-order)
Film's Official Website • Film's Trailer

Soundtrack: Download now from Harry Gregson-Williams - Gone Baby Gone - or - order the CD below

Directed by: Ben Affleck (mmp directorial debut
Screenplay by : Ben Affleck (Good Will Hunting ) • Aaron Stockard (debut) based on the novel by Dennis Lehane

Featured Cast (Where You Might Remember Him/Her From):
Casey Affleck (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) • Michelle Monaghan (The Heartbreak Kid) • Morgan Freeman (Feast of Love) • Ed Harris (Code Name: The Cleaner) • John Ashton (Sweet Deadly Dreams) • Amy Ryan ("The Wire") • Amy Madigan ("Carnivàle") • Titus Welliver ("Deadwood") • Michael K. Williams (I Think I Love My Wife) • Edi Gathegi (Death Sentence) • Mark Margolis (The Fountain) • Madeline O'Brien (The Legend of Lucy Keyes)

Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word or less review of this film]
Click to read the spoiler points for Gone Baby Gone
Click to see photos from the Premiere of Gone Baby Gone
First, let's get the obvious out of the way. Ben Affleck is an extremely talented individual. Not only is he an Academy Award®-winning screenwriter and accomplished actor, but now he can add 'director' to his résumé. Whether he will be nominated for Best Director on his first major motion picture outing as he was for screenwriting remains to be seen. This is going to be a tight year for the directing nominations, all the more reason the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences might want to consider implementing my proposal to split the director nominations along gender lines like they do for actors as they would suddenly have more room with which to work this year. In any case, for a virtual directorial debut, Ben Affleck proves himself more than worthy of the title "Triple Threat" held by so few actor / director / writers before him. But, that's not all for the Affleck family. On the tail of the long held up release of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford in which Casey Affleck achieves, probably not arguably, the finest acting moment of his career, out comes Gone Baby Gone with him also in the starring role. The agents of actors hoping to secure ever more favorable contracts for their clients especially if the actor does an excellent job in both films generally do not favor this kind of back-to-back release. They tend to dilute actually the net results of each other. Well, unfortunately, Casey Affleck's agent is just going to have to deal with it for he's pretty spectacular in this film too—though the roles are not even on same golf course let alone same par. Nonetheless, if this second great performance in the same fall season doesn't catch the attention of those who nominate, who knows what would? Of course, the bad thing for him is that he's over 30, but still looks 19, so people will tend to think he's got a long, long road ahead of him to get many more nominations.

Now to the matter at hand--a little film called Gone Baby Gone, starring of course Casey Affleck and then Michelle "suddenly red hot" Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, Amy Ryan, and Amy Madigan in a screenplay adapted by Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard from Dennis Lehane's best-selling novel featuring his detective couple of Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro. The story starts out with the mysterious disappearance of Amanda McCready (Madeline O'Brien) from her bedroom in her apartment in the Dorchester area of Boston. Her mother, Helene (Amy Ryan), claimed to police that she stepped across to a neighbor's home after Amanda had fallen asleep, and when she returned some half hour or so later, Amanda was gone. Not believing the police can actually do much, Amanda's Aunt Beatrice (Amy Madigan) and Uncle Lionel (Titus Welliver) hire a couple of local private detectives: Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan) to look into the matter and, perhaps, tap their local connections better than the police might be able to do. At first, Angie is reluctant to help, but she quickly becomes convinced that they can do no harm in helping to find Amanda.

"…the surprise twisty thriller of October 2007."
After a few days, she and Patrick might have begun to wish they'd stayed out of it for every step closer to finding Amanda they get, a whole new fine kettle of fish opens up. A long-standing, high ranking member of the police department in charge of missing persons, Captain Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman) doesn't like the idea of private detectives being involved, but he knows the law and he must cooperate. He sends Detectives Remy Bressant (Ed Harris) and Nick Poole (John Ashton) to brief them on all that the police have learned. For all intents and purposes, Patrick and Angie seem to be on to something when they discover that Helene was not at the neighbors as she told the police, rather she was at a local bar hopped up on drugs. The police find this most interesting; and, upon further inquiry, discover that Helene, for all her outward appearances, has some very deep dark secrets that may explain, after all, the disappearance of her daughter. (You will have to check out the spoiler points for more on these and other secrets to this very twisty thriller.)

Ben Affleck went from 0 to 60 in skill-level in directing this film. There are not many signs that Gone Baby Gone wasn't directed by a seasoned veteran. Shot by shot, the film unfolds like a Chinese puzzle box with each layer leading down a path to a new puzzle. One of the more ingenious lines of the film illustrates the cleverness when wise Patrick Kenzie says, "He lied to me. Now I can't think of one reason big enough for him to lie about that's small enough not to matter." Twisty word play like this combined with an unbelievable ending that's as morally complex as it is surprising, make for an excellently engaging film. One of the problems the film faces has to do with the timing and all the news about the similarity between the film's plot and the actual disappearance of young Madeleine McCann from her Portugal hotel room when her family was on vacation there from England. All of this Madeleine McCann news masks the fact that first, Gone Baby Gone is not based on actual events, is a work of fiction, and rather than being 'ripped from the headlines' is meant to be a great thriller film. Which it is. It may seem less so, however, if one imagines it has been based on the news of the day, and that the film is a remake of history. Put in the correct context, the film is outstanding, but most people will have to put the real headlines out of their minds to see this clearly.

The actors do phenomenal jobs in all respects. Nothing they ever do even slightly tips their hands as to what is really going on. The disappointing thing is that the female characters are relegated to such subsidiary aspects of the story. Despite trying her best, Michelle Monaghan still comes out as a shallow second fiddle to Casey Affleck's Patrick Kenzie. They are used strictly to heighten emotional tension, but not much else. This would be one of the few major criticisms that could be effectively leveled against the film. The second would be that while the idea of authentic Boston accents in a film is a good one, it behooves the actors who are good at them to recall that most of the rest of the nation takes some time to decipher it. Therefore, fluency and diction become extra important. If the lines are mumbled Bostonese, well, then one is left wondering what on earth was just said. Lastly, inasmuch as Morgan Freeman is used to playing the big Kahunas from God to top-notch detectives, this does not mean he should be typecast. This role is borderline typecasting for him, and it shows. He's an Academy Award®-winning actor, and this role, while pivotal to the plot and outcome of the story, really could have been played by almost anyone. It certainly did not require someone of his stature, and it's borderline tragic seeing him in this role with so little to do.

As far as directing debuts go, Ben Affleck is as much a standout as he was when he and Matt Damon wrote Good Will Hunting. As far as Casey Affleck goes, he's no longer in the shadow of his brother as an actor, in fact, he's probably established himself as the better actor of the pair, with a deeper range and no chance of ever taking on Gigli. As far as the movie as a whole goes, Gone Baby Gone is the surprise twisty thriller of October 2007. This angle worked well for The Departed last year as did the Boston setting, but will names like Affleck, Affleck, and Affleck, and a little Harris, Freeman, and Monaghan pack the same punch as names like Scorsese, Nicholson, DiCaprio, and Damon? Probably not just yet, give them a few more films and we'll see.

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Cast Members
Casey Affleck • Michelle Monaghan • Morgan Freeman
Ed Harris • John Ashton • Amy Ryan
Amy Madigan • Titus Welliver • Michael K. Williams
Edi Gathegi • Madeline O'Brien
Director
Ben Affleck
Writers
Ben Affleck • Aaron Stockard
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DVD
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Review-lite Gone Baby Gone (2007) [max of 150 words]
Ben Affleck writes and directs his first major motion picture, Gone Baby Gone, starring his brother Casey, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, and Michelle Monaghan and adapted from the best-selling novel about an abducted girl and two private detectives who seek to solve the mystery of her disappearance. The very twisty plot layers on morality issues as well making for a decidedly great film knocked down a bit by misinterpretations that its story is somehow ripped from the headlines. Casey Affleck proves himself a capable leading man, despite his uncanny youthful looks. It's only too bad that Morgan Freeman's role demanded so little of the screen legend. Otherwise, it's an engaging thriller with plenty of surprises.
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