Gone Baby Gone

STARRING: Casey Affleck, Ed Harris View Trailer RELEASE DATE: 10/19/2007 DATE SCREENED: 10/16/2007 The Verdict GOOD - See it in the theater

Ben Affleck oversaw three seasons of Project Greenlight, along with his buddy Matt Damon. It was a reality tv show whose goal was to find the next great filmmaker. The person with the best movie idea would get to make their movie. All the show really accomplished was to produce slightly interesting television, and three bad films by filmmakers we will never hear form again. Ben Affleck takes matters into his own hands with Gone Baby Gone. He produced, co-wrote (based on a novel), and directed the film, with his younger brother Casey Affleck cast in the starring role. I went into the screening with doubts as to whether or not Ben could do any better than the filmmakers he hand picked on Project Greenlight.

Right at the outset of Gone Baby Gone, we see that the abduction of a 4-year old girl, right from her home in one of the poorer neighborhoods in Boston, is the top story on the local news. The family hires private investigator Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck), who works with his girlfriend Angie, to assist the police in the investigation. When they visit the home, Officer Jack Doye (Morgan Freeman) reminds Kenzie that if a child isn’t found within the 1^st day, the child is usually found dead or not at all. With each day the odds of finding the child get lower. It’s now day 3. Unbeknownst to Office Doyle, Kenzie has connections that the police don’t. He grew up in Boston and has maintained friendships among the neighborhood underworld of drug dealers. Although he doesn’t look it, Kenzie is a foul mouthed tough guy who isn’t intimidated by anyone. He finds out that the abducted girl’s mother wasn’t honest about the events on the night of the abduction. She lied to the police, and to all the local news outlets. Two cops, played by Ed Harris and John Ashton, are assigned to work with Kenzie and they interrogate the mother again. It turns out she was involved in a robbery of another local drug dealer. Finally, there is a lead. A typical investigation follows, as one lead may turn up dead, but that points to another lead, and then another. But eventually, things take an unexpected turn. Nothing is as it seems in this movie. The plot twists continue to pile up as Kenzie is obsessed with finding this girl even when everyone else, included the girl’s mother, have long since given up.

Ben Affleck has managed to make a compelling thriller, with twists and turns I didn’t see coming. Casey Affleck is proving to be an up and coming star, with great performances in this film and The Assassination of Jesse James, back-to-back. I spent my college years in Boston, and I felt like I was back again as I watched this movie. I was drawn in completely. I felt all the tension as Kenzie got himself into some sticky situations with dangerous people, most notably two scenes in the home of three child molesters. I wanted him to find the kid and wanted the “bad guys” to be punished. Then the movie throws in a moral dilemma towards the end that had me pondering things long after I left the theater. The film leaves you thinking, and doesn’t try to force and answer on you. Some of the twists and turns do present themselves a little bit too conveniently to be believable, so Ben can get better on the writing side. But as a filmmaker, he knows what he is doing. It seems he should have been making movies himself instead of wasting time trying to find other filmmakers with Project Greenlight. He can finally distance himself from the nickname 'Bennifer'. Definitely see this one in the theater.