Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4569 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-09-22
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 109 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Reviews
For his initial offering as director, Ben Affleck returns to the site of his first Oscar: South Boston (he and Matt Damon shared the award for Good Will Hunting). Hot on the heels of his moving turn in Hollywoodland, Affleck's Dennis Lehane adaptation marks one of the more seamless actor-to-filmmaker transitions in recent years. Ostensibly, a procedural about the search for a missing child, class and corruption emerge as his primary concerns. First off, there's low-rent private eye Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck, equally adept in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford). Then there's the girl's drug mule mother, Helene (Amy Ryan, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead). She and Patrick grew up in Dorchester, but he took a different path, setting up an agency with his girlfriend, Angie (Michelle Monaghan). Helene's aunt, Bea (Amy Madigan), hires the duo to augment the investigation, and they team up with Captain Doyle (Morgan Freeman) and Detective Bressant (Madigan's husband, Ed Harris). The authorities don't appreciate the interference, but Patrick knows how to get the local populace talking, and he soon finds there's more to the story than anyone could possibly imagine. Hard-hitting, but never soft-headed, the evocative end result proves Affleck has a flair for this directing thing and that his little brother can carry a major motion picture with aplomb. Gone Baby Gone belongs on the list of great Boston crime dramas, along with The Departed and Mystic River, Clint Eastwood’s take on Lehane. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Synopsis
Based on the novel by Mystic River author Dennis Lehane, Gone Baby Gone marks the directorial debut of actor Ben Affleck. Featuring a solid cast including Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman, and Affleck's brother Casey, in the lead role as a private detective, Gone Baby Gone centres on the disappearance of a young girl in the working class neighborhood of Dorchester in South Boston. With plenty of twists and turns, the movie works as a solid crime thriller, but it's as a study of a place--and one's ability to either accept and embrace or ultimately break free from it--that the film flowers. Beneath the movie's street-tough justice and cop shop politics sits a very complicated view of the world, which Affleck delves into unflinchingly, thanks in large part to his ability to extract some excellent performances from his cast. Casey Affleck offers a nice mix of both steely resolve and vulnerability, while Harris presents a strong performance as a conflicted, emotionally tortured cop. Of particular note is Amy Ryan as the mother of the abducted girl. Her character's outrageous foul-mouthed demeanor ultimately ends up feeling both tragic and pathetic, with the only appropriate reactions being either pity or rage. It makes for an uncomfortable but affecting dichotomy. Gone Baby Gone signifies a confident and impressive turn behind the camera for one of Hollywood's more contentious stars. A Boston native himself, Affleck takes great care in evoking his city's entirety, from its undeniably ugly underbelly, to what feels like an almost primordial sense of community. It speaks to Affleck's substance as a director, and of good things to come.

Customer Reviews

A powerful drama that tackles an emotional moral dilemma, but the plot gets confusing
There is some excellent acting in this film, Casey Affleck puts in a very convincing performance as the streetwise but surprisingly conscientious private investigator brought in to assist the police. Amy Ryan is also excellent playing the mother with dubious priorities, her behaviour eliciting mixed emotions from the viewer of disgust and genuine sympathy. But the star of the show is the superb Ed Harris, who plays one of the cops involved in the investigation. His revulsion at these crimes translates into an intense anger and determination not to let the perpetrators get away with these heinous acts, even if that means him having to cross the line of the law in order to tilt the balance in the law's favour.

The story is gripping and extremely hard-hitting, this is certainly no Hollywood 'hero to the rescue' type film. It very realistically portrays all the emotions those involved in a case like this must go through, as well as the unpleasant circles they have to enter in order to find answers. The only problem is that this intensity sometimes gets lost in a storyline that seems unnecessarily complex and, at times, confusing. It's the sort of film where you very much have to concentrate or you'll soon lose the story thread, and considering the high emotions the film tackles, adding such a demanding storyline does leave you feeling a little exhausted.

Nonetheless the film has some very emotive drama and some very powerful performances. It effectively presents a moving moral dilemma but doesn't try and impose it's own opinion on you, instead it cleverly leaves you, the viewer, to make up your own mind.

Gone Baby Gone
When it comes to tragedy, Hollywood is normally at the front of the queue, ready to tell the rest of the world "The Human Story". From war and terrorism, to personal heart-break and misfortune, studios are there to tell the story...and of course rake in the profits. But last September saw a change in attitude when distributors pulled the British release of abduction drama Gone Baby Gone, after the disappearance of Madeline McCann. So whilst movie-goers on the other side of the pond were raving about Ben Affleck's directorial debut, Brits were left wondering what all the fuss was about. Nine months later thought, and Gone Baby Gone is finally hitting UK cinema screens.

After four year old Amanda McCready goes missing, private detectives Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and his partner-cum-girlfriend Angie Gennare (Michelle Monaghan) are on the case. They have been brought in by the child's aunt and uncle (Amy Madigan and Titus Welliner), as they are known for their knowledge and connections in the local area. But they continue to come up against obstacles during their search in the form of the child's mother (Amy Ryan), the Boston Police Department and the city's seedy underworld.

A few years ago, the career of Ben Affleck had been all but written off after numerous flops and extended exposure to Jennifer Lopez. But after an award winning performance in Hollywoodland last year, and on viewing Gone Baby Gone, it seems the career of the Oscar winner - remember Good Will Hunting - is back on track. The Boston in which he has set the film is the gritty, realistic Boston which The Departed only managed to scratch the surface of. He's taken the film right to the heart of the Bostonian suburbs where "the people have fallen through the cracks". In this, Affleck has created another character; a character which is crucial to the events of the film. He is also completely comfortable with shooting action scenes, with the house invasion fast-paced, as confusion reigns and the claustrophobic surrounding create uncase.

The casting of younger brother Casey in the lead role is clearly not just a favour from his older brother. After a break-out performance in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Affleck Jr is becoming hot property in Hollywood, and his performance in Gone Baby Gone cements this reputation. As private investigator Patrick, he is able to weave with ease between scenes with the missing child's family, the police department and the low-life of Boston Growing up in the Boston area, the thick drawl in his voice allows his performance to feel all the more realistic, as if the streets he's searching really are his streets.

The performance of Amy Ryan, as Amanda's mother Helene, is well worth the Oscar nomination which she received. Helene is herself an actress, going from repugnant, uncaring mother, to the `mom whose kid has been abducted' in the blink of an eye. She really doesn't leave any room for the audience to have sympathy with her character, and actually leads people to think the child may be better off abducted.

Gone Baby Gone has an awful lot to say about an awful lot of issues, from police corruption and underworld dealings, to motherhood and family relations, with the main predicament between doing the right thing and doing the just thing. The examination of these hold together quite well in the first two-thirds of the films, but come the resolution of the mystery, these lessons go too far in their sensationalism, and the story feels quite strained, which is unfortunate, after the realism of the earlier parts of the movie. The final lesson learnt by the private investigative couple is slightly melodramatic, and is probably a lesson too far, weakening what has come before it.

A well directed, superbly acted and thought provoking film looses the realistic streak come the end, with a few too many lessons trying to be taught and a few too many questions being asked.

effective neo-noir with a fake dilema

Like the Gene Hackman movie 'Night Moves' from the 1970s, this is a film that you only realise a bit after watching it is actually a pretty conventional film noir. It's a good one, but the moral imperative that drives the narrative and sets up what is offered as a difficult moral conundrum (although in my view it isn't at all), hides what is, when you think about it, a very straightforward film noir plot- everybody's lying, goodies are really baddies, and the hero is both streetwise and completely clueless as to what's really going on until the final reel.

Ben Affleck's direction, though, is excellent, especially with regard to showing without dwelling on some of the horrors of the story, and his brother Casey is excellent in the lead. Think film noir from the outset, and the other casting decisions give the game away a bit, and it's the less well know actors (to most audiences anyway) who give the best performances really, but it is generally strongly performed throughout.

The only weak link for me is the younger Affleck's character's partner whose attitude later on in the plot seems to make little sense to me, other than to serve to add a rather artifical cost to Affleck's moral dilemma. Difficult to write about without ruining the film, but I think his view, and what he does, is unquestionably right, and there's no dilemma there at all. But credit to a Hollywood film for at least attempting to try and present moral ambiguity, rather than black or white moral certainties.