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Gone Baby Gone - 2007
Directed by Ben Affleck
Written by Ben Affleck & Aaron Stockard
Based on the novel "Gone, Baby, Gone" by Dennis Lehane
Starring Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris
John Ashton, Amy Ryan, Amy Madigan & Titus Welliver
MAJOR SPOILERS ARE GIVEN AWAY IN THIS REVIEW
I've slowly warmed up to Gone Baby Gone over the years, and I've slowly understood more about it's connections to Boston, along with a plotline that I wanted to follow in a precise manner - if I don't get every little step, I'm often frustrated and not satisfied. Obviously the moral dilemma, which starts to take shape when character Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) murders a paedophile execution style, but which really hits hard at the film's conclusion, is something I took away from the film the first time I saw it. That ending arrives like a thunderclap, and is something that makes the film unforgettable. It was the ending that made me enthusiastic about returning to the film, and I've seen it on numerous occasions now - I have film critics and audiences to thank for giving this film much acclaim in late '07 - over 15 years ago. Is the right thing to do always the best course of action? What if doing the right thing causes more harm than good? It's an interesting question.
Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan) are small-time private investigators, chasing down people with debts and finding missing persons in Boston, where they live. When four-year-old Amanda McCready (Madeline O'Brien), daughter of drug abuser and all-round bad mother Helene (Amy Ryan) goes missing, they're contacted by Amanda's Aunt Bea (Amy Madigan) and Uncle Lionel (Titus Welliver) who want them help augment the effort of the police in searching for the girl. They consult with Captain Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman), along with Detective Sergeant Remy Bressant (Ed Harris) and Detective Nick Poole (John Ashton) who give them very little information to go on. It's through Patrick's contacts that he learns that Helene would associate with drug runner Ray, and this shakes the truth from the mother - she and Ray had stolen a large amount of money from crime kingpin "Cheese" (Edi Gathegi) shortly before her daughter disappeared. Ray is found beaten to death, and when an exchange is organised with the cops, a shootout occurs, Cheese is killed, and Amanda is seemingly drowned. It's only when Patrick learns that the police lied to him that he takes stock, and finds that nothing seems to add up...
I can't talk about the movie without letting massive spoilers roam free - so be warned, nothing will be left unsaid from here on out. Amanda's Uncle, Lionel had contacted Remy Bressant when Helene and Ray had stolen Cheese's money - he was hoping this would be the impetus for them to snatch Amanda and get her to a more proper and caring home. She ended up with Captain Doyle, who had stepped down from his duties after the controversies pursuant to the exchange-gone-wrong. The whole exchange had been a fraud, a show to put an end to Patrick and Angie's search. When Patrick finds Amanda at Doyle's place, the ex-Captain pleads for the investigator to let it go - Amanda's in a happy place now, and being looked after properly. If Patrick turns him in, Amanda will be sent back to a neglectful mother, and she'll be damaged as a result. But Patrick decides that it would be wrong to go back on his promise to Helene, and that no child-snatching can be justified by any means. When he visits little Amanda at her mother's house later, he finds a daughter that's once again being neglected, and in an impactful final exchange, learns that Amanda's mother had been getting the name of Amanda's favourite doll wrong the whole time - in other words, she paid no attention to her little girl. Regret starts to creep onto Patrick's face.
Why did Patrick make the decision he did? Well, he'd found a probable suspect in another child-snatching case, and when the house was raided he aided the police. Nick is hit in the neck by a bullet fired from the people inside the house, and Patrick goes in - heading upstairs to where he hopes to find the little boy. What he finds is a paedophile pleading that an "accident" had happened, a bloodied small pair of underpants, and a dead little kid. He vomits, and then, unable to control himself, shoots the sex offender in the head killing him. From that moment on, despite being congratulated by the police and not charged, he feels a nagging sense that he's done something very wrong. It eats away at him - there's no justification for killing a person in cold blood - even if that person is a monster. It's the fact he's dealing with the fallout that he makes the decision he does at the end - he does the "right" thing despite the circumstance. He's afraid that if he turns a blind eye to Amanda's abduction, he'll forever feel that nagging sense of guilt. So, despite the fact that Angie leaves him and Amanda is now in a bad situation, he turns Doyle in.
What would you do? What would I have done? It's not an easy question. Our sense of right and wrong can be influenced in exactly the same way Patrick's was - by a recent experience. Had we done the wrong thing, and been effected by a guilty conscience? Had we just done something right, and had a situation blow up in our face? Patrick regrets his decision at the end of Gone Baby Gone. Had he given Helene the benefit of the doubt? Had he overestimated how changed she'd be after losing her daughter? I always felt he was trying to salvage the mess by babysitting Amanda - that from now on in his life, he'd be little Amanda's special guardian. He'd be too afraid of meeting her later in life, damaged and addicted to drugs, and realise this was his fault. He was also afraid of being accosted by Amanda's mother later in life, with angry cries of "You knew, and you did nothing!" It's with these thoughts that we leave Gone Baby Gone. We think about situations where right and wrong are hopelessly tangled up, and even our moral compass is swinging about in a confused way. Life can be messy like that.
Director Ben Affleck got much praise for his directorial debut here, and picked up a few awards for his effort. He'd prove it wasn't just a one-off by making Argo in 2012, but the reaction to Live By Night in 2016 was more mixed - it was okay and ultimately forgettable. I enjoyed Air, which came out this year, 2023, and The Town in 2010 was solid. Despite that little nagging "nepotism" tag, Casey Affleck was okay - and I actually like this actor more than his brother. The big accolades came for Amy Ryan as white trash, neglectful mother Helene - she won over 20 varied acting awards, and was nominated for an Oscar. I thought she was great, but without knowing how feted her performance was I'd never have tagged it as above and beyond the ensemble in Gone Baby Gone - which I thought was a team effort. I think it was a huge shame that Affleck didn't give Michelle Monaghan more to do in this - she kind of follows Casey around, and has little impetus beyond that and making him feel guilty at the end. She really needed a couple of key scenes where her character was really important.
The score from Harry Gregson-Williams is subtle and understated - I like the fact that he allowed his work to take a back seat and not announce itself, but supplement certain moments. The cinematography was handled by a big name in the industry - John Toll, director of photography on The Thin Red Line and an Oscar winner for doing Braveheart and Legends of the Fall. What can I say - he handles the assignment well, as you'd very well expect him too. Production Designer Sharon Seymour has become a Ben Affleck regular, and editor William Goldenberg would go on to win an Oscar for his work on Affleck's Argo. Gone Baby Gone wasn't Ben Affleck being an actor overstretching himself - he knew exactly who he needed and seems to have found a natural fit as filmmaker. He knew the people who fit this project, and even Casey seems to suit the role he was given as much as Bobbie Kennedy suited being Attorney General despite being JFK's brother. Donna Morong and Carolyn Pickman won a Casting Society of America award for their work on this film.
Gone Baby Gone is a Boston film - Affleck's hometown, and most of the extras along with minor casting roles went to local Bostonians, at times being casted off the street as the production was rolling. You can tell that it's delving into a very specific time and place - a culture within a culture, and one that tells a very personal story as well as being an adaptation of a novel. The whole film starts with intimate little shots from the city streets, getting us to orientate ourselves to this Boston story. Of course, it's also a human story - a universal one. It translates, and it even had to be delayed in more than one country due to kidnapping cases that would have made it's release unseemly. There's nothing as heart-stopping as a kid being taken - or a small child lost somewhere needing help. In every city around the world, from time to time, parents who are frantically trying to find their child capture the attention of an entire city, or country. The power behind those moments are what bring us all together in that same fraught state of mind for most of Gone Baby Gone's running time - before the ending leaves us with that moral dilemma, and the story then stays with us long after the film has ended.
Gone Baby Gone - 2007
Directed by Ben Affleck
Written by Ben Affleck & Aaron Stockard
Based on the novel "Gone, Baby, Gone" by Dennis Lehane
Starring Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris
John Ashton, Amy Ryan, Amy Madigan & Titus Welliver
MAJOR SPOILERS ARE GIVEN AWAY IN THIS REVIEW
I've slowly warmed up to Gone Baby Gone over the years, and I've slowly understood more about it's connections to Boston, along with a plotline that I wanted to follow in a precise manner - if I don't get every little step, I'm often frustrated and not satisfied. Obviously the moral dilemma, which starts to take shape when character Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) murders a paedophile execution style, but which really hits hard at the film's conclusion, is something I took away from the film the first time I saw it. That ending arrives like a thunderclap, and is something that makes the film unforgettable. It was the ending that made me enthusiastic about returning to the film, and I've seen it on numerous occasions now - I have film critics and audiences to thank for giving this film much acclaim in late '07 - over 15 years ago. Is the right thing to do always the best course of action? What if doing the right thing causes more harm than good? It's an interesting question.
Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan) are small-time private investigators, chasing down people with debts and finding missing persons in Boston, where they live. When four-year-old Amanda McCready (Madeline O'Brien), daughter of drug abuser and all-round bad mother Helene (Amy Ryan) goes missing, they're contacted by Amanda's Aunt Bea (Amy Madigan) and Uncle Lionel (Titus Welliver) who want them help augment the effort of the police in searching for the girl. They consult with Captain Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman), along with Detective Sergeant Remy Bressant (Ed Harris) and Detective Nick Poole (John Ashton) who give them very little information to go on. It's through Patrick's contacts that he learns that Helene would associate with drug runner Ray, and this shakes the truth from the mother - she and Ray had stolen a large amount of money from crime kingpin "Cheese" (Edi Gathegi) shortly before her daughter disappeared. Ray is found beaten to death, and when an exchange is organised with the cops, a shootout occurs, Cheese is killed, and Amanda is seemingly drowned. It's only when Patrick learns that the police lied to him that he takes stock, and finds that nothing seems to add up...
I can't talk about the movie without letting massive spoilers roam free - so be warned, nothing will be left unsaid from here on out. Amanda's Uncle, Lionel had contacted Remy Bressant when Helene and Ray had stolen Cheese's money - he was hoping this would be the impetus for them to snatch Amanda and get her to a more proper and caring home. She ended up with Captain Doyle, who had stepped down from his duties after the controversies pursuant to the exchange-gone-wrong. The whole exchange had been a fraud, a show to put an end to Patrick and Angie's search. When Patrick finds Amanda at Doyle's place, the ex-Captain pleads for the investigator to let it go - Amanda's in a happy place now, and being looked after properly. If Patrick turns him in, Amanda will be sent back to a neglectful mother, and she'll be damaged as a result. But Patrick decides that it would be wrong to go back on his promise to Helene, and that no child-snatching can be justified by any means. When he visits little Amanda at her mother's house later, he finds a daughter that's once again being neglected, and in an impactful final exchange, learns that Amanda's mother had been getting the name of Amanda's favourite doll wrong the whole time - in other words, she paid no attention to her little girl. Regret starts to creep onto Patrick's face.
Why did Patrick make the decision he did? Well, he'd found a probable suspect in another child-snatching case, and when the house was raided he aided the police. Nick is hit in the neck by a bullet fired from the people inside the house, and Patrick goes in - heading upstairs to where he hopes to find the little boy. What he finds is a paedophile pleading that an "accident" had happened, a bloodied small pair of underpants, and a dead little kid. He vomits, and then, unable to control himself, shoots the sex offender in the head killing him. From that moment on, despite being congratulated by the police and not charged, he feels a nagging sense that he's done something very wrong. It eats away at him - there's no justification for killing a person in cold blood - even if that person is a monster. It's the fact he's dealing with the fallout that he makes the decision he does at the end - he does the "right" thing despite the circumstance. He's afraid that if he turns a blind eye to Amanda's abduction, he'll forever feel that nagging sense of guilt. So, despite the fact that Angie leaves him and Amanda is now in a bad situation, he turns Doyle in.
What would you do? What would I have done? It's not an easy question. Our sense of right and wrong can be influenced in exactly the same way Patrick's was - by a recent experience. Had we done the wrong thing, and been effected by a guilty conscience? Had we just done something right, and had a situation blow up in our face? Patrick regrets his decision at the end of Gone Baby Gone. Had he given Helene the benefit of the doubt? Had he overestimated how changed she'd be after losing her daughter? I always felt he was trying to salvage the mess by babysitting Amanda - that from now on in his life, he'd be little Amanda's special guardian. He'd be too afraid of meeting her later in life, damaged and addicted to drugs, and realise this was his fault. He was also afraid of being accosted by Amanda's mother later in life, with angry cries of "You knew, and you did nothing!" It's with these thoughts that we leave Gone Baby Gone. We think about situations where right and wrong are hopelessly tangled up, and even our moral compass is swinging about in a confused way. Life can be messy like that.
Director Ben Affleck got much praise for his directorial debut here, and picked up a few awards for his effort. He'd prove it wasn't just a one-off by making Argo in 2012, but the reaction to Live By Night in 2016 was more mixed - it was okay and ultimately forgettable. I enjoyed Air, which came out this year, 2023, and The Town in 2010 was solid. Despite that little nagging "nepotism" tag, Casey Affleck was okay - and I actually like this actor more than his brother. The big accolades came for Amy Ryan as white trash, neglectful mother Helene - she won over 20 varied acting awards, and was nominated for an Oscar. I thought she was great, but without knowing how feted her performance was I'd never have tagged it as above and beyond the ensemble in Gone Baby Gone - which I thought was a team effort. I think it was a huge shame that Affleck didn't give Michelle Monaghan more to do in this - she kind of follows Casey around, and has little impetus beyond that and making him feel guilty at the end. She really needed a couple of key scenes where her character was really important.
The score from Harry Gregson-Williams is subtle and understated - I like the fact that he allowed his work to take a back seat and not announce itself, but supplement certain moments. The cinematography was handled by a big name in the industry - John Toll, director of photography on The Thin Red Line and an Oscar winner for doing Braveheart and Legends of the Fall. What can I say - he handles the assignment well, as you'd very well expect him too. Production Designer Sharon Seymour has become a Ben Affleck regular, and editor William Goldenberg would go on to win an Oscar for his work on Affleck's Argo. Gone Baby Gone wasn't Ben Affleck being an actor overstretching himself - he knew exactly who he needed and seems to have found a natural fit as filmmaker. He knew the people who fit this project, and even Casey seems to suit the role he was given as much as Bobbie Kennedy suited being Attorney General despite being JFK's brother. Donna Morong and Carolyn Pickman won a Casting Society of America award for their work on this film.
Gone Baby Gone is a Boston film - Affleck's hometown, and most of the extras along with minor casting roles went to local Bostonians, at times being casted off the street as the production was rolling. You can tell that it's delving into a very specific time and place - a culture within a culture, and one that tells a very personal story as well as being an adaptation of a novel. The whole film starts with intimate little shots from the city streets, getting us to orientate ourselves to this Boston story. Of course, it's also a human story - a universal one. It translates, and it even had to be delayed in more than one country due to kidnapping cases that would have made it's release unseemly. There's nothing as heart-stopping as a kid being taken - or a small child lost somewhere needing help. In every city around the world, from time to time, parents who are frantically trying to find their child capture the attention of an entire city, or country. The power behind those moments are what bring us all together in that same fraught state of mind for most of Gone Baby Gone's running time - before the ending leaves us with that moral dilemma, and the story then stays with us long after the film has ended.