Amy Ryan shines and there are some fine piece parts...but there also are a lot of "acting" moments and sermonizing

Rating: 7/10 (10 June 2008)

Gone Baby Gone drops more F-bombs than dogs in a public park drop pooch poop. That's only part of the problem with this movie that contains within a lot of wrapping a clever, complicated mystery. Scattered throughout the movie also are what seem to be endless "acting" moments for every featured actor, a style of self-aware directing that spills over onto some of the actors' performances, and enough social sermonizing to keep even Sean Penn happy.
Some of my impatience with this movie is because the mystery depends on so much well- planned sleight of hand that it raised my expectations for a solid, complicated mystery drama. The structure and presentation of the drama is well managed by director Ben Affleck. So is any number of individual scenes (when the acting doesn't start getting impassioned). And Amy Ryan as the cokehead mother simply walks away with the acting honors. She does it by making us believe she's what she's acting as, something a number of the other actors, in my opinion, don't quite pull off. Casey Affleck is just fine as the young private investigator who at first believes what he sees and then begins to figure things out. Ed Harris, on the other hand, and made up to look for some reason like Patrick McGoohan on Columbo, chews the scenery as if he were breaking in a new set of false teeth. Morgan Freeman plays yet another variation on his wise, humanistic, aging gentleman. Freeman needs to find a role where he can kick a reporter to death or humiliate a young pair of lovers. Somewhere along the way he has misplaced his real ability to be vicious. Just watch him as Fast Black in Street Smart.
As the story develops there are more and more twists. At first, and putting aside the feeling of the movie being too sincere for its own good, this led to a lot of tricky fun. By the time we reached the conclusion and all became clear, all also became stretched out with a series of mini-dramas that seemed to have difficulty finding a way to stop.
Even Gone Baby Gone's basic argument -- isn't saving a child from almost certain degradation worth bending the rules, even if really bad scumbags pay a price -- is compromised by the naivety implicit in the question. Do we really want to live in a world where the police get to play God and make those decisions? Or maybe we should let the police play God only when it comes to little kids. Or only when it comes to little kids but no more often than once a month. Is there an answer to this apparently weighty question? The movie implies that there isn't. Come on. Sure there is.
There's quite a bit to enjoy in Gone Baby Gone, just not enough, in my opinion, to make a fully professional, satisfying story. But I'll give it this: The movie isn't mediocre and it isn't dull.