Two Boston area detectives investigate a little girl's kidnapping, which ultimately turns into a crisis both professionally and personally.Two Boston area detectives investigate a little girl's kidnapping, which ultimately turns into a crisis both professionally and personally.Two Boston area detectives investigate a little girl's kidnapping, which ultimately turns into a crisis both professionally and personally.
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- Nominated for 1 Oscar
- 33 wins & 32 nominations total
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As far as the story goes I'd never spoil it for you but it's complex, not confusing. There is a lot going on and it's so real. I don't know what's happened in this area but people have become so lousy. So lousy that if you're a good person you just don't know what can be done anymore. There seems to be no answer sometimes and this film is set in that world. If you have the brains and heart to try you don't even know what will come of it.
Who should see this? Intelligent people. People who want to come out of a movie thinking about what they just saw. People who want to see an incredibly well made film. And anyone who ever liked Ben Affleck even for half a second. He should be very proud of this movie. As far as content there are loads of curse words, some drug use, but no nudity that I can remember, and there is some gun violence, but nothing too bad. Put it high on your movie going list.
Based on the book by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River), Gone Baby Gone marks the directorial debut of Ben Affleck, who also penned the screenplay in tandem with Aaron Stockard, and easily puts him at the front of the line for Oscar contention.
Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan star as a pair of private investigators based in the rough working class Dorchester district of Boston. The two are hired by the family of a missing four-year-old girl to assist the police investigation because of their street connections and ability to get people to talk who otherwise would never open up to a cop. As they navigate through the neighborhood's seamy underbelly of pimps, drug dealers and crack whores they uncover an ever-expanding mystery that takes on the added dimension of provoking the question of just what is right and what is wrong, firmly pitting both story and viewer in a struggle between situational ethics and moral absolutes.
Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris round out an impressive cast, but it's the younger Affleck who takes this movie on his back and runs with it, easily surpassing his director brother in terms of acting breadth and range. This is no slight to Ben, however. It's been a long time since I was this impressed with a directorial debut, and even longer since I was given cause to reflect upon the values that we hold dear as individuals and a society, and the moral foundations upon which they are based. Gone Baby Gone manages both, and wraps it up in a hard-hitting detective story that serves as much to satisfy the baser urges of bar fights and gun play, as it does tackling bigger issues.
It's also one of those rare movies in which it can easily be said that the less you know about the story going in, the richer the experience. There's no clear twist ending to give away, but rather a layered story that unfolds like a Russian stacking doll with a moral dilemma at its core.
One thing I do feel comfortable revealing, however, is that this movie comes about as close as any can to being a bonafide lock come Academy Award time. Congrats Ben, you may well have redeemed yourself from your J-Lo/Gigli reputation at last.
There have been a lot of solid movies set in Boston in recent years, but Gone Baby Gone tops even The Departed and Mystic River, as good as they both were. What starts off as a story about a missing child evolves into one of the most thought provoking and genuinely compelling movies that I've seen.
Ben Affleck has real talent as a director, and did an excellent job of maintaining the authenticity of both the story of the Dennis Lehane novel and the neighborhood that it's set in. Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman, and Amy Ryan were all perfectly cast, and give stellar performances.
Gone Baby Gone is just one of those movies that it's hard to find a flaw with. It's expertly made, sticks with you, and doesn't offer any easy answers. Highly recommended.
I had not expected Casey Affleck to play as well either because there were so many compliments made toward his performance I expected something totally different. Yet he also brought this authenticity in his acting like Ben did in his directing. Youn could just see the look in his eyes that he was totally into it, he was it. He gave a great portrayal of a detective that should have earned him an Oscar nomination. Also a great supporting cast was put in place with Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris and Amy Ryan. All of them gave engaging performances as well. Amy Ryan especially with her performance as the mother of her girl who is the centerpiece of this story. I believe if it was not for her this movie could have very easily fallen into an ordinary movie.
What really made up the movie was the message. After all what is a movie without a message. This movie did not try to pretend to be deep or try to impress. It did what it had to do, asking the a very tough question. Is the right thing to do always the right decision to make and do the ends justify the means? I advise you not to miss this movie and definitely watch this with a friend or family member.
The film is a gritty thriller at first, with a quite masterful opening which is engrossing and effective. The sense of location is evident from the start and both Afflecks demonstrate their talents. Casey is an interesting screen presence, and Ben is an unfussy director with an eye for location and images.
The film is served well be the stellar cast. Ed Harris is very good, as is Michelle Monaghan and the Oscar nominated Amy Ryan is fantastic, whilst Morgan Freeman is Morgan Freeman, which is nice. They do make the film easy to watch, even though the subject matter, focussing on child abduction, is difficult to deal with.
However, although the subject matter is treated well throughout most of the film, its fatal flaw is that it lets itself go in the third act. The plot twists and turns three times toward the end to lose nearly all credibility and then loses any that it had left by landing on a truly unbelievable conclusion. Its focus on character is not lost, but it is still a disappointment to see such a tightly played drama unwind at the end.
Nevertheless, this film has much promise. Its subject matter should be a consideration for anyone who is thinking of seeing this, but it is an intelligent and interesting film which is worth watching, mainly because of what it might be the precursor of.
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaAmy Ryan looked and sounded so convincing as a working-class Dorchester mom that a security guard mistook her for a fan on the first day of location filming and wouldn't let her on the set. One of the producers finally noticed her on the other side of one of the barricades and said she should be let through. The incident made Ryan twenty minutes late, but convinced her the Boston accent she'd prepared was realistic.
- GoofsWhile Dottie talks to the press, she uses the word "vigual" when she means "vigil." This was because her lines were being fed to her by director Ben Affleck and she misheard this particular word. Affleck noticed her mistake but thought it sounded natural, and thus left it alone.
- Quotes
[first lines]
Patrick Kenzie: I always believed it was the things you don't choose that makes you who you are. Your city, your neighborhood, your family. People here take pride in these things, like it was something they'd accomplished. The bodies around their souls, the cities wrapped around those. I lived on this block my whole life; most of these people have. When your job is to find people who are missing, it helps to know where they started. I find the people who started in the cracks and then fell through. This city can be hard. When I was young, I asked my priest how you could get to heaven and still protect yourself from all the evil in the world. He told me what God said to His children. "You are sheep among wolves. Be wise as serpents, yet innocent as doves."
- Crazy creditsIn the credits, Ben Affleck gives special thanks to Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, both members of the Boston Red Sox World Series championship teams of 2004 and 2007.
- SoundtracksYou're Crazy
Written by Axl Rose, Slash (as Saul Hudson), Duff McKagan (as Michael McKagan),
Izzy Stradlin, Steven Adler
Performed by Guns N' Roses
Courtesy of Geffen Records
Under license from Universal Music Enterprises
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official sites
- Language
- Also known as
- Desapareció una noche
- Filming locations
- Murphy's Law - 837 Summer Street, Boston, Massachusetts, USA(bar at the end)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $19,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $20,292,962
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $2,299,000
- Oct 21, 2007
- Gross worldwide
- $34,612,443
- Runtime1 hour 54 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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