Powerful performances; succeeds in capturing the Boston atmosphere and a powerful morality tale

Rating: 7/10 (24 December 2007)

Another in this year's continuous selection of morality tales, Gone Baby Gone raises a lot of questions; deep, resonant moral questions of course, but also some external questions that haven't to do with the film content but rather the talent behind the camera, questions also raised back in 1998. Questions like "how is this guy, who has an unusual tendency to pick bad movie roles and the wrong people to date, so good at film-making?", and "why hasn't he done this stuff before?", and "why hasn't he done any more of this?" Indeed Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's debut-and-only screenplay, Good Will Hunting, is one of the greatest examples of debut screen writing and is intriguing not only because it is so good as a stand-alone work, but also intriguing because the two haven't written a screenplay since. That is until now, when Affleck wrote and also chose to direct his second (mainstream) screenplay, and did such a fantastic job that it's incredibly that he didn't use his Hollywood clout to land a directing job before this one.
Affleck utilizes his intimate knowledge and personal experience of the streets of Boston and employs this experience to create one of the best portrayals of rural city atmosphere in recent years. Affleck paints the seedy underbelly of Boston with immense skill, clearly making use of the sights, sounds, backgrounds and people he grew up with and even putting many of them in the film. Indeed one of the greatest elements working to the film's advantage is Affleck's spot-on brilliant ability to capture the very spirit and atmosphere of the underbelly of Boston, an ability that should leave many directors envious.
Another element working to the film's advantage is the acting. Affleck directs his extremely talented actors to absolutely pitch-perfect performances, and manages to turn his younger brother into a bona-fide leading man. This role, along with his supporting turn in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, are sure to propel his star in Hollywood immensely. Affleck simply commands the film and proves that he is more than capable of carrying not only a complex, intricate mystery plot but also a very heavy moral dilemma and message. Michelle Monaghan is passable but doesn't really have much acting to do, but the rest of the cast deliver stellar performances, in particular Ed Harris as the hard-boiled detective who helps Affleck's Patrick character, and even more so in Broadway veteran Amy Ryan who delivers a frightening, visceral, raw and brilliantly vicious performance as the broken, manic drug-addicted mother whose young daughter's abduction puts the plot's gears in motion. It is a fantastic star-making performance for her as well and this will hopefully be the launching point for a wonderful film career for her as well as for Casey Affleck.
As I previously mentioned, Gone Baby Gone serves as one of many morality-themed films released in 2007, which study and sometimes judge the motives that cause people to do the things they do and make the decisions they choose to make. In the film, based on the novel by Dennis Lehane who is no stranger to dark, Boston-set morality tales, the main character Patrick must choose between understanding the motives behind a heinous crime and perhaps even reaching the conclusion that they were good-natured motives, and between making the decision he thinks is right but may not be. Any film which openly raises these questions and actively engages its audience in the moral dilemma, in effect asking the viewers what they think is right, automatically gets some high points in my book, especially if it is done as effectively as in this film.
That said, the movie suffers from one major drawback in that in the final act it allows the shocking mystery revelations to take over in place of the heavy moral dilemmas and the brilliantly detailed depiction of the Boston underbelly that characterize the first two thirds of the film and make them so brilliant. These revelations aren't all on the brightest side and the whole conspiracy theory is old and rather daft, but the film skims over these parts rather quickly and hastily returns to its previous high levels of quality, characterized by powerfully brilliant and spot-on performances and wonderful, location-based direction from Ben Affleck. As a debut directorial effort the film is even more impressive, and even without Affleck's name on the poster it still works as an effective, engaging morally themed crime-mystery.