Gone Baby Gone

2007’s Gone Baby Gone, directed by Ben Affleck.

Starring Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Amy Ryan, Titus Welliver, Amy Madigan, Ed Harris, John Ashton, Morgan Freeman, Michael Kenneth Williams, and Edi Gathegi.

What is it about?

Adapted from the novel by Dennis Lehane, Gone Baby Gone is a present day story set in Boston where Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan work as private detectives. After a public kidnapping, they are hired by a desperate maternal uncle and aunt (Titus Welliver and Amy Madigan) to find Madigan’s sister (Amy Ryan)’s daughter, Amanda. With Amanda missing, Affleck and Monaghan work with the police (Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, and John Ashton) to track down the free spirited single mom’s daughter. It’s a emotional but complicated case, with plenty of local characters clouding up the waters. Will Amanda be found alive, and returned to her mother?

 Why is it worth seeing?

Gone Baby Gone is a delightfully skilled and underrated film that not only proves to be much more than a detective crime caper, but is also finely attuned to a sense of place. Featuring a dynamite cast, Ben Affleck’s directorial debut (that he also co-wrote) might be his best. Lead by a rock solid performance by Casey Affleck, we wade through authentic feeling corridors of Boston’s less affluent and well worn areas, with a character around every corner offering various degrees of unfriendliness.

As a yarn about 2 private eyes doing detective work, Affleck keeps things drum tight as we funnel down a rabbit hole of leads, misinformation, uncooperative witnesses, violent suspects, false culprits, conspiracy, and how the mathematical odds always eventually lead to zero. As a procedural, it leaves no bullets in its chambers- and it even leaves hints for us armchair sleuths to follow.

In a movie that continually zigs and zags, GBG never forgets what it is at its core (a love letter to Boston), or what it’s ultimately about. Its authenticity is as potent as the movie is re-watchable. Fueled by a underrated score by Harry Gregson-Williams, we watch a great cast duke it out, helpless to the film’s purposeful trajectory.

Out of nowhere, by the film’s ending, we are forced to make a choice. It is so hard to know what is best for people, and impossible to enforce it once you’ve made that choice. How a community functions is tantamount to what permanency looks like. Gone Baby Gone understands that better than most.

Rating:

4.5/5

Trailer: Click Here.