The Afllecks Strike Up a Great Pairing Here

Rating: 8/10 (18 January 2016)

Even though prior to "Gone Baby Gone", Ben Affleck has turned in some impressive performances like "Hollywoodland" and "Changing Lanes", still the mass has never fully warmed up him. While fellow comrade Matt Damon has branched out quite nicely in the Bourne series and the Ocean's series amongst other films, Affleck has lagged quite badly in poor films like "Paycheck" waving the white flag to surrender. Even his relationship with Jennifer Lopez did not further enhance his acting career in fact it hindered him even worse.
Affleck decided it was time to give directing a whirl, I mean what could go wrong? In fact he made a smart career choice here. He had successfully adapts Dennis Lahane's novel about child kidnapping to the big screen while not watering down its drab mood and its scrupulous contradictions. This is the forth installment involving a pair of Bostonian private eyes in hot pursuit, this adaptation not only conveys an intriguing story going for it, but the conflicts it has in store will likely have you drawing up conclusions of your own.
The tone of the story carefully executed by Affleck and his co- writer Aaron Stockard, through the mind of Investigator Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) growing up in the mean streets of Dorchester where he's lived since childhood. He joins forces with his girlfriend and professional partner Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan), Patrick is quite resourceful at cracking crimes that the cops neglect.
When a young toddler named Amanda McCready (Madeline O'Brien) vanished without a trace, Patrick refuses to be involved in a media saturated investigation. But when her concerned aunt and uncle (Amy Madigan and Titus Welliver) begs him to do this investigation, he finally accepts. In the investigation Patrick and Angie link clues that leads to Amanda's inebriated mother Helene (an amazing Amy Ryan) the investigation starts to easily piece together. By an hour into the movie, we are lead to believe that the plot has unfolded, but then something takes a turn in a contrasting direction. Patrick believes that these clues are not all that what they seem to be. So he goes into more deeper investigation.
Filmed in the tough and gritty streets and bars of Boston, everything about Boston comes to life here making the authenticity quite sublime. The gratitude for that goes to "Braveheart" cinematographer John Toll for capturing the landscapes and very unsettling feel of a noir film that's a bow of respect to the one's from the 1950's.
And showing that he's not below his brother's legacy, Casey Affleck exhibits that he was perfectly cast to play this pivotal role. Born in the suburban city of Falmouth, Massachusetts Casey's accent was spot-on. Even though he has a boyish visage and quite a disturbing demeanour, his foul-mouth perpetually angry expressions add significance to this ultra violent film and at times it might even surprisingly catch people off guard. And even though Monaghan's performance is not well-structured as Affleck's and her character is not as developed, she still manages to release emotions through those pretty eyes of hers, which was never intended for the script let alone the novel.
And sure the motives within the characters are not decipherable, "Gone Baby Gone" relishes more on asking the viewers not entirely on what is the right thing to do, but more towards if we exactly know what the right thing is.