Review: Gone Baby Gone (2007)

Ok, I have been realising of late that my reviews are very unstructured, and verge on waffle, so am going to try and structure them all a bit more.  I will start this week, by working with a basic framework from a UK publishing company, and we will see how it goes.

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Gone Baby Gone Stars Casey Affleck (Assassination of Jesse James, Oceans 11) and is directed by his brother Ben (Goodwill Hunting, Dogma) alongside Ed Harris (history of violence, the Rock).  Based on the Dennis Lehane (Mystic River) novel.

In this film we are introduced to private detectives Patrick (Affleck) and Angie (Monaghan) as they are hired onto the case of a missing girl in their Boston area.  As they move through asking questions, and assisting with police investigations, they find themselves not only questioning the society they live in, but their own morals and opinions too.

There are very few, if any special effects in this film, which I feel is very important, I think the closest we get is in a gun fight, but this is old school fake blood.  This is not only a nice change, but I feel it strengthens the story, it could have easily have become bad if too many pyrotechnics, or drawn out death scenes were added.  This film was to the point, and showed how even our most basic personal opinions can be brought into question.

I really did enjoy this film, others have said that towards the end there are too many twists, but to be honest, I felt they worked well with the story, certain twists were a little obvious, but this only caused is to focus on them and not look past to the twist behind it, lurking to surprise us.  It was definately a nice change from a lottle of the hollywood bright colors we are getting due to the summer blockbuster season.  I sadly have still to watch 'The Assassination of Jesse James byu the coward Henry Ford', but based on caseys acting chops here, I think I will toroughly enjoy it.

Be warned though, this film has certain elements to it that shock, there isn't lots of gore or extensive violence.  The language is dark, but it is the topic of the plot that will make some feel uncomfortable.  Overall though, a very good film, may Ben stay behind the camera directing works like this, than being in front.

Gone Baby Gone (2007)

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