Two private detectives Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan) hunt for a missing four year old child in the streets of Boston.
The girl's mother Helene McReady (Amy Ryan) falls under suspicion, but the investigators struggle to maintain a lead as their journey becomes one of increasingly professional and personal torment.
This crime drama by fledgling director Ben Affleck is based on a 1998 novel by Dennis Lehane. Citing startling similarities to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann last year, the film’s distributors have held its release back in the UK for nearly six months.
They say:
Variety: "An involving Boston set tale of mixed motives, selflessness and perfidy."
Total Film: "An excellent police procedural and a personal triumph for Ben Affleck."
Empire: "A superior, haunting thriller of abduction, deception and ethical dilemma."
We say:
Gone Baby Gone finally arrives bolstered by good reviews and award nods and yet offers precious few moments of innovation. Instead the same old Hollywood thriller clichés (voiceover, handy shot of a PI's licence, Morgan Freeman), are tossed into a typically twisty narrative that pushes more answers than questions.
It's as if US critics were so grateful that Ben the director did not make them sit through a terrible movie they have misinterpreted it as being great. Affleck may, possibly, be a fine auteur one day, if he can find his own voice and not Clint Eastwood's (formerly Don Siegel's), or one of a handful of actors turned directors whom he tries to emulate. He needs to branch out from the family too.
Dour Casey Affleck (Ben's kid brother) delivers a performance close to fellow young thesp Ryan Gosling (Half Nelson, Fracture). It's an ostensibly laidback style, whereby both actors slink casually inside their protagonists so they become an extension of themselves rather than a completely new person.
Sadly this process is too concerned with the performer rather than the part. It is about understanding what brand of cigarettes your character smokes but not what makes them tick - why they get out of bed in the morning. Casey is so pat with this approach it is hard to believe his empty Kenzie ever really steps into a room.
However the film itself functions rather well as a dramatic page turner with plenty going on. If proceedings stretch believability (an armed crackhead drug dealer would not get talked out of using his gun by a smart ass speech he'd be too high to comprehend), then this might be justifiable for its enthusiastically investigative pace.
Sean Penn frequently directs in the same genre, exploring themes of guilt, obligation and disintegration - notably with his third outing The Pledge in 2001. Penn helms more sincerely than Affleck though, you genuinely believe he champions the material because it moves something deep down inside - he connects with people above plot.
TV staple Amy Ryan received an Oscar nomination for her portrayal as contemptible Helene, someone who isn't fit to raise a dog let alone a child - a regrettably believable waster who, despite the plight of losing her daughter, provokes barely a measure of sympathy. Freeman is on board for his usual, slightly wearing thin now wise man persona while Ed Harris proves with every syllable uttered why he is one of the sharpest American actors working today.
No need to spend time raking over the parallels of this film and the Maddy case - there is a comparison and it does bear out the story's painful premise. Gone Baby Gone offers an explanation, real life seldom does.
CAST
Casey Affleck
Michelle Monaghan
Morgan Freeman
Ed Harris
DIRECTOR
Ben Affleck
TIME
114 mins
POSTED...
Sat 14 Jun at 8:21pm
