October 25, 2007 -- “Gone Baby Gone” is a crime mystery drama with so many plot twists in it that it becomes a movie pretzel. The twisty, morally challenging story is adapted from a book by Dennis Lehane (who also wrote another twisty morality tale, “Mystic River”). The story is also reminiscent of another morally challenging movie with a twist, “Million Dollar Baby.” The films “Mystic River” and “Million Dollar Baby” were both directed by Hollywood establishment and critic darling Clint Eastwood, so it is no surprise both films were critically acclaimed, award-winning movies despite some significant flaws. The critical praise for “Gone Baby Gone” is much more surprising given that it lacks big-name stars and it directed by a guy most critics love to hate, Ben Affleck. I guess most critics have a fondness for slow-moving, depressing movies featuring moral conundrums, even if those conundrums are fairly phony.

“Gone Baby Gone” is a movie about a cute, 4-year-old child, Amanda McCready, who disappears from the home of a neglectful, drug-addicted mother, Helene McCready (played by Amy Ryan of “Capote”). Even though a large police task force is mobilized to find Amanda, Helene's aunt, Beatrice McCready decides to hire a local private detective, feeling he might be able to get the locals to talk since they have lived in this particular Boston neighborhood all of their lives. The private detective, Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck of the “Ocean's 11” series of movies) and his associate (and girlfriend) Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan of “Mission Impossible III”) reluctantly agree to take on the case, even though it will probably sour their relationship with the Boston Police Department. As a courtesy, police commander Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman of “Million Dollar Baby”) appoints police detectives Remy Bressant (Ed Harris of “A History of Violence”) and Nicholas Raftapoulos (Nick Poole for short, played by John Ashton of “Instinct”) to work with the private investigators. Doyle is the head of the Crimes Against Children unit of the Boston P.D. and once lost a daughter himself. He is dedicated to finding the missing girl and is openly contemptuous of the private investigators.

Although Patrick and Angie appear to be young and inexperienced, they immediately start turning up evidence that the police missed, like the fact that Helene McCready lied about where she was at the time her daughter disappeared. Patrick uses his neighborhood connections to get local residents to talk to him. Some of the same locals did not talk to police. Not everything goes smoothly, however, some locals are hostile to Patrick and Angie, and even threaten them in one local bar. Some locals seem to be overly sensitive to Patrick's success and believe he is acting in a conceited manner. Patrick is slick and likes to avoid confrontations, but shows a violent temper when pushed too far, or when thugs insult Angie.

As the investigation continues, a whole laundry list of suspects is unearthed, including local drug dealers. Strange, highly unlikely connections between the various suspects, and even non-suspects, begin to surface. These connections begin to point to a whole new theory about the crime until the plot of the movie becomes one big, tangled mess. It would take more than one viewing to untangle the knots in this twisted criminal investigation. Suffice it to say that most people in this story are not what they seem to be. Now comes the moral conundrum. Patrick and Angie must decide what to do with this case once they've solved it. Patrick comes down on one side of the question and Angie comes down on the other. O.K., but why does Angie make that into a “my way or the highway” situation when both of these moral choices have roughly equal merit? That is not what I call love. The choice is tough enough without basing the survival of an entire relationship on it. I had the same problem with the moral choices presented in “Mystic River” and in “Million Dollar Baby.” The choices in all three movies have a certain contrived phoniness about them that sets off my bullshit detector.

While I thought the moral dilemma in this movie is a bit contrived and there are too many coincidences (a couple of key people are killed off a little too conveniently) and too many plot contortions, it is a decent story that was compelling through most of the movie. The characters are interesting, the acting is very good and the location cinematography in Boston lends the film a air of authenticity. My problem was, I thought the movie was over several times and it just kept plugging onward, sputtering until it ran out of gas at the end. The problem is in the screenplay more than anything else. It looks like Ben Affleck can direct. We'll see if he can direct a film that people actually want to see. This is not that film. Most films that Affleck has been associated with in recent years have been box office flops. Most critics love his latest film, but most audiences do not. This appears to be another flop. It rates a C+.

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Copyright © 2007 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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