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The most significant aspect of 2007's Gone Baby Gone is that it marks the directorial debut of Ben Affleck. Considered to be among Hollywood's worst actors prior to this filmmaking endeavour (quickly descending from Hollywood A-Lister to late-night talk show host punchline), Gone Baby Gone demonstrates that Affleck's career has a brighter future behind the camera rather than in front of it. Written by Affleck and Aaron Stockard (based on the acclaimed novel by Dennis Lehane), Gone Baby Gone is a gripping, densely-plotted crime thriller able to engage viewers on both an emotional and an intellectual level. The essence of Boston, Massachusetts is expertly captured in this brilliantly gritty tour de force which takes you through a world of drug users, drug peddlers, small-time hoods and big-time dreamers.
Gone Baby Gone is narrated by Patrick Kenzie (Affleck), a young man residing in Boston who works with his girlfriend Angie (Monaghan) as a private investigator specialising in missing persons. When a media frenzy engulfs the kidnapping of a 4-year-old girl named Amanda McCready, and with the police making little headway on the case, the girl's aunt and uncle (Madigan and Welliver) turn to Patrick and Angie in the hope that they can augment the investigation. While Patrick and Angie freely admit that they have little experience with this type of case, the family want to hire them for two reasons: they know the tough neighbourhood, and they have a rapport with the parts of town that don't take kindly to police. As the investigation intensifies, Patrick finds his eyes opened by the depth of betrayal, lies and death that accompany the ostensibly straightforward missing child case.
Affleck's filmmaking debut is based on the novel by Dennis Lehane, whose book Mystic River was very successfully adapted as a feature film by Clint Eastwood back in 2003. Gone Baby Gone works in a similar style to Mystic River since both stories deal with the grief of losing a child. There are probably only a handful of people who've experienced such grief, but even fewer who can question it, and the film will therefore strike a primal nerve in several viewers. The narrative of Gone Baby Gone is excellently serpentine, and its nature keeps a viewer thoroughly involved and uncertain as to what the next corner will reveal. The film is comprised of three distinct acts - the first two acts are only tangentially related, but the third ties everything together in jaw-dropping fashion. The only problem with the movie is a loss of strong dramatic tension as the film nears its conclusion - it becomes too talky, explicative and moralising in the most obvious manner imaginable. The way it beats viewers over the head with long monologues is the only misstep of an otherwise taut, engaging crime thriller.
It's always a dangerous move when actors, especially well-known movie stars, decide to move behind the camera due to the fact that their directorial efforts are at risk of being subsumed by their work in front of the camera, not to mention such a decision is also often perceived as a power move. However, over recent years, the Oscar committee have rewarded well-known actors who've proved themselves to be skilled directors; giving gold statues to such stars as Robert Redford, Kevin Costner, Clint Eastwood and Mel Gibson for their directorial work. With Gone Baby Gone, Ben Affleck can add his name to the list of stars who have successfully pulled off the transition. It's not exactly surprising that Affleck - a high-profile actor with a wildly variable body of work in both style and quality, and who almost lost his career due to tabloid scrutiny - did everything possible to ensure his directorial debut would be taken seriously, and employed every ounce of his directorial skill to do justice to the source material (reportedly Affleck's favourite book).
Ben Affleck has helmed the film with a remarkable amount of skill and confidence (especially for an inexperienced filmmaker). For several sequences, Affleck and director of photography John Toll favoured the use of handheld cameras, with lots of movement to underscore the characters' emotions. On top of this, Affleck's work appears to emulate the gritty crime pictures of William Friedkin and Martin Scorsese - his vision of Boston is not far removed from the hellhole that New York City was depicted as back in the '70s. Gone Baby Gone is a detail-rich film, an atmosphere-rich film, and inexorably a Boston film - it's brimming with local colour, from the accents to the slang. Meanwhile, the extras are dripping with authenticity, and this is because Affleck used actual locals as well as professionals to occupy the background. Gone Baby Gone is permeated by the sense of a real world inhabited by real people, rather than meticulously produced sets on a soundstage inhabited by Hollywood hopefuls. For the finicky detail Nazis, Affleck has directed motion pictures in the past, but Gone Baby Gone is the first of his efforts to reach the multiplexes.
Taking the lead role here is Casey Affleck, yet the casting is simply far too superb to be dismissed as the choice of a freshman director electing his easiest option. Casey, who earned an Academy Award nomination for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, is extraordinary as Patrick Kenzie; bringing an understated intelligence, a quiet confidence, and an explosive ferocity to the role. Michelle Monaghan is well-paired with Casey, and submits a similarly superb performance. Luckily, the supporting cast is equally impressive, with the always-reliable Morgan Freeman submitting a scene-stealing performance as a police captain, and the duo of Ed Harris and John Ashton both placing forth highly compelling work. The sole Academy Award nomination Gone Baby Gone received was for Amy Ryan's performance as Helene McCready. Though by no means the most note-worthy aspect of the production as the nomination may imply, Ryan nonetheless presents a riveting portrait of a woman who loses her daughter.
Gone Baby Gone is a smart and remarkably honest motion picture, and it's riddled with moral questions that challenge the notion of what's truly right without pretending to offer clean, convenient answers. Commendably, it also manages to be emotionally wrenching without revelling in any syrupy melodrama or resorting to manipulation - the impact is earned from sure-handed direction, a phenomenal cast, and one hell of a script. It's this reviewer's fondest wish that Ben Affleck writes and directs more movies as excellent as this highly satisfying, morally complex crime thriller.
9.2/10
