Hmm.. Ben Affleck?
Wow..Never did i know that Mr. Affleck was a director. This movie was somewhat kinda like the departed with the whole cops and boston thing going on. But while watching it, the movie was a little confusing at the end but had a good plot. I... (read full)

3.5/4  Moral gray areas
A fascinating character study with richly-textured characters and a script that provides plenty of emotional and moral dilemmas. I think the point it's trying to make is about making choices, not whether they are right or wrong, but about... (read full)

4/4  Affleck has earned back my respect
This film has some the the most powerful and effective moments I have seen in many years. The whole movie in general has the perfect tone and unbelievable emotion. I did get a bit upset as toward the end, it strays a bit from the emotion... (read full)

3/4  2.5 stars up until the ending, then 3 stars
The movie was good but nothing really pushed it over the top. For the first 1 and half of the movie it was only worth 2 and a half stars but the ending pushed it over to get a 3 star review. I think the only thing that made things movie ... (read full)

3/4  Who thought Ben could actually direct
Two things made this movie stand out, one is great direction and two intense acting from Casey Affleck. I really was wowed by the fact that Ben Affleck could actually direct something as good as this, he can now put director in his resume.... (read full)

4/4  Gone Baby Gone
I'm surprised by how focused this movie was. I didn't think Ben Affleck had it in him to direct such a suspenseful picture but I was proven wrong. I liked the dark tone of the film, the twists, and the evolution of Casey Affleck's charisma... (read full)

3.5/4  Gone Baby Gone Quick Review
i never expected a movie as in depth and compelling as this one. it kept me on my toes through out the whole thing.

2.5/4  Gone Baby Gone Quick Review
This movie touched on some moral gray areas. It was a good mystery, but when eveything came to light I thought to myself "Oh geez, really? Ridiculous" It was just too much.

3/4  Gone Baby Gone Quick Review
A film directed by Ben Affleck may have once caused me to avert my gaze and weep long into the night, but after watching Gone Baby Gone I am convinced he has the good touch. Moving, though-provoking, even intelligent. A novice makes good.

2.5/4  Gone Baby Gone Quick Review
A not too bad stab for a first time director. I still don't like him and he is no where near as good as George Clooney or Denzel W. as a director. At times it was as good as "Seven" and at others, it was as bad as a "Law and Order" episode.

3.5/4  Gone Baby Gone Quick Review
Who knew that Ben Affleck could direct so well? Very deftly done, Mr. Affleck.

4/5 Colorful
  by Bob Humbug
I rather liked this film. It was colorful--both in the characters and in the lack of black and white--or perhaps at least a lower level contrast than much of what I'm used to.

Challenging, developed, well acted, but somewhat sloppily narrated. I don't know if this is the result of the script, the direction or production, but whichever the case, the film ends up bending over and whispering answers in your ear to questions you were just about to ask like the obnoxious couple three rows back in the theater. Not terrible, just a little distracting.

5/5 Gripping Read Explores Heartbreaking Reality
  by Debra Purdy Kong (Port Moody, BC)
When PIs Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro are asked by the McCreadys to find their four-year-old niece, Patrick or Angie turn them down. After all, the police are on the case and these seasoned PIs know the emotional price to pay if things turn out badly. But Beatrice McCready's refusal to accept no and other circumstances gradually cause a change of heart. The more questions Patrick and Angie ask, though, the more disturbing the situation, and the more dangerous the truth.

What starts as a straightforward plot in Gone Baby Gone, becomes an increasingly complicated story with every twist and turn. In part, this is a grim portrayal of life for some children in the real world, and if it wasn't for Dennis Lehane's elegant writing it'd be a hard novel to read.

As it was, it took me a long time to gather the courage to read Gone Baby Gone. The novel arrived on my TBR pile when my children were young. Now that they're 21 and 15, I felt ready to read Dennis Lehane, and I'm glad I did. Yes, the book was emotionally difficult at times, but the subject of child abduction was handled with passion, compassion, and a writing style that kept me turning the pages. People have recommended more of Lehane's books to me. This time, I won't wait so long to read them.




3/5 I love kids
  by S. K. Harrell (NC)
Due to the emotionally charged and physically graphic nature of this film you may think you know where it's going. You do, but you won't expect how you get there. What could have been a fairly compelling story about our apparent cultural dilemma on dealing with children whose parents refuse to manifests as a convoluted whodunnit. The commentary on children maintaining no value in our culture should be valid enough material to compose a meaningful story. It is thought-provoking but in theme only. The plot meanders. It's twists are not intuitive. Although the acting is well done the emphasis on integrity of Bostonian accents results in an incredibly slurred performance by most of the main cast. Through chewed words Affleck delivers an otherwise convincing Patrick Kenzie, though Monaghan never really established the relevance of Angie Gennaro. Her performance underwhelmed and her character advanced the plot none. If you want to see into the minds of those who hurt children and those who think they are protecting them from such, this film is interesting. Keep it free and just watch the news.

2/5 Affleck Brothers No Match for Good Fiction
  by L. Wilson
I remember my intrigue at Casey Affleck's character in Good Will Hunting how efficiently he played the part of the younger brother and his face registering with me. I knew I would see him again if for no other reason then that his brother, Ben and his buddy, Matt were making it big. Since then he has worked his way up the chart with parts of increasing weight. Now we are graced with the double debut of brother Ben's directing in a salable feature and Casey as lead in Gone Baby Gone.

I've had the good fortune to read several LeHane novels. Except for a few recent books, Mystic River among them, LeHane's stories involved an unlikely pair of investigators that have a long, sordid history in Boston. I missed Gone Baby Gone and for the sake of seeing the film version and this review I am glad I have not yet read it.

The film opens with Casey as Patrick Kenzie tooling through the streets of Boston, a cinematic tool that worked well in the development of the characters in Good Will Hunting but does nothing to establish the Kenzie character or a sense of the City of Boston. Instead the editor and director choose to idle on Casey Affleck's face and the simmering background of an aging Boston excessively and for no useful purpose.

LeHane's Kenzie/Gennaro series tells the story of Kenzie and his female partner Angela Gennaro, private detectives with a wide range of acquaintances from police detectives to the most heinous of Boston's underbelly. This is what puts them in the position they so often find themselves; doing the work that police could never get away with and solving the crime. This is an important point that fails to ever get established in the film. Both viewers who have read LeHane and those who have not are left asking several nagging questions; Who are Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro? Why do people hire them?

It is with this unexplained history that Kenzie and his platonic live-in partner, Gennaro waltz into the offices of cops, Remy Bressant and Nick Poole and lay down some ultimatums about mutual cooperation after the pair reluctantly agree to investigate the kidnapping of a neglected four year old daughter of lowlife drug addict mother. For the next hour Kenzie happens upon clues in the case and the cops essentially do nothing. Then comes the first ending, the part where Kenzie's voice over emotionally prepares the audience for the end by telling the "beginning of the end" story of Gennaro's break up with him. Another failing in the choices made by the director leaves us feeling nothing here because we never learned that there was relationship between the two. In the novels, Gennaro plays many characters to Kenzie, in this case she could have been eliminated and nothing would have been lost.

The movie doesn't develop the character of Remy Bressant, deftly played by Ed Harris, a cop with an apparent debt owed to the aging Police Capt. Jack Doyle, played by Morgan Freeman. Without the Bressant character there would be no story. The talents of both Harris and Freeman are wasted in this film.

Instead of developing any of the characters, scenes like when brother, Lionel McCready, confesses the life cycle of three shots of Cutty and a tall boy are used. These types of poor editing choices waste precious minutes of film time. Ben, as co-writer of the adaptation, is also responsible for dialog that is so bad in places it distracts from the movie experience. The scene between Kenzie and Gennaro talking philosophy was beyond believable. Right then and there, I imagined Ben and Casey quibbling over the conversation in real life. That was a distraction. Kenzie's apparent devout religiosity and moral code is not set up properly and the audience is left with trying to believe that an afterthought rather than a crucial element is the basis for the emotional and moral decision that is the climax of the story. Where a more adept director could have left me crying at the end of this movie I skipped out of the theatre without a shadow on my heart. I am not beyond giving Casey another chance to succeed in a starring role but I would advise him not to do it with brother, Ben.


5/5 Very realistic and gritty story
  by CriminalJusticeteacherdotcom (TN)
Who would have thought Ben Affleck had talent?
As someone who is currently working a missing child case, I can tell you this is a most realistic movie. It stretches a bit with who ultimately did it (no spoilers) in the end, but the fuzzy line between right and wrong, what is good and evil, and what should be and what should not be done is done with finess and reality without any fancy action hero type silliness. The use of actual people from the street vs actors helped, and the real actors do a great job in keeping with character. Shows Missing Child stories aren't always so simple or so easy.
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