Gone Baby Gone

Gone Baby Gone came out relatively recently, and having heard good things about it, Barrett and I decided to rent it. The movie was directed by Ben Affleck and stars his brother Casey. The movie takes place in the slums of Boston and is about a detective who specializes in missing persons who is hired to investigate the case of 4 year-old girl from his neighborhood who is kidnapped. This movie reminded us of Mystic River in the setting and its dealing with corruption among law enforcement, but we both liked it better.

Gone Baby Gone is not for the faint of heart; the language and violence in the movie is intense but fitting. The cast of the movie does a great job especially Casey Affleck as detective and main character and Amy Ryan as Helene McCready, the drug-addict whose daughter was kidnapped. (She also played Holly on The Office but you would never guess that after watching this movie.)The movie also stars the always good Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris. The weakest link is Casey Afflecks girlfriend/associate who is not believable at all. (I personally think they should have gotten someone like Alicia Keys. She would have done a better job in the role.)

One thing I really liked about this movie was the way Affleck dealt with filming the violence. Rather than letting the camera dwell on particularly gruesome scenes, he would do a series of very effective fast cuts. It was like you were covering your eyes but peeking out at intervals to see what was happening. It was a great way to deal with harsh realities with being gruesome or making the scenes more painful that necessary. This allows the main grotesque to be the crime itself (kidnapping) rather than the blood and guts.

Again, I did not like the ending. There were two points where the movie could have drawn to a close that would have worked well. Instead there were unnecessary plot twists which spread the plot too thin--a classic case of biting off more than you can chew. I think the movie should have ended at the second logical place (after the shoot out in the drug house and Harris's conversation with Affleck in the hospital parking lot).

Overall, this was a well acted suspense movie and great effort by Ben Affleck with too many plot twists at the end. I give this movie a 7.5 out of 10.