Gone Baby Gone

Gone Baby Gone is a 2007 American neo-noir mystery drama film directed by Ben Affleck (in his feature-length directorial debut) and starring his brother Casey Affleck. The screenplay by Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard is based on the novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River and Shutter Island. The plot centers on two private investigators, Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro, hunting for an abducted four-year-old girl from the Boston neighborhood of Dorchester.

Plot

Private investigator Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and his partner/girlfriend Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan) witness a televised plea by a woman named Helene McCready (Amy Ryan) for the return of her missing daughter Amanda, who was abducted with her favorite doll "Mirabelle". Patrick and Angie are then hired by the child's aunt Beatrice (Amy Madigan) to find Amanda and discover that Helene and her boyfriend "Skinny Ray" (Sean Malone) had recently stolen money from Cheese (Edi Gathegi), a local Haitian drug lord. After Ray is murdered, Patrick and Angie join the police detectives Remy Bressant (Ed Harris) and Nick Poole (John Ashton) with investigating the case and assist in arranging the trade of money for the return of Amanda. Captain Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman) reads Patrick a telephone transcript of the drug lord setting up an exchange for Amanda. The exchange at a nearby quarry in Quincy is botched and it is believed Amanda drowned; her doll is found in the quarry and returned to Helene. Doyle, whose own daughter was killed years before, takes responsibility for the death and goes into early retirement.

Two months later, a seven year old boy is abducted in Everett and Patrick receives information that the boy was taken by a known child molester. After entering the suspect's house and finding evidence of the abducted boy, Patrick returns with Remy and Nick to rescue him. They are seen by the residents and Nick is shot. Patrick enters the house during the shootout and finds one of the residents dead. He retreats into the child molester's room, where he finds the boy's dead body; he then shoots the child molester in the back of the head in a fit of rage.

Nick later dies of his wounds. Trying to alleviate Patrick's guilt over the events at the house, Remy unthinkingly confides that he once planted evidence on someone with the help of "Skinny Ray" — whom he had initially told Patrick he didn't know. After Nick's funeral, Patrick speaks to a police officer, who tells him that Remy had been asking about the drug lord's stolen money before the drug lord knew it was missing. Patrick then questions Beatrice's husband Lionel (Titus Welliver) in a bar and pieces together that Lionel and Remy had conspired to stage a fake kidnapping in order to take the drug money for themselves and to take Amanda from her neglectful mother's care. At that point, Remy (trying to cover for his earlier mistake) enters the bar, while wearing a latex mask and holding a shotgun, and stages a robbery. He points the shotgun at Lionel's head, but the bartender shoots Remy twice in the back. Remy flees and is pursued by Patrick to the rooftop of a nearby building, where he dies.

Patrick is questioned by the police about Remy's death and learns that the police never had a phone transcript like the one that Doyle had read to him prior to the botched exchange. Patrick and Angie drive to Doyle's home, where Patrick finds Amanda living with Doyle and his wife; Doyle was part of the phony kidnapping all along. Patrick threatens to call the authorities, but Doyle attempts to convince him that Amanda is better off living with them than with her mother, and that is reason enough not to get involved. Patrick leaves and discusses the choices with Angie, who says she will leave him if he calls the police, since she also believes Amanda is much better off with the Doyles. In the next scene, the police arrive, Doyle is arrested, Amanda is returned to her mother amidst heavy publicity, and Patrick and Angie break up.

Patrick later visits Amanda as Helene is about to leave on a date with someone she met during the publicity over her daughter's disappearance. Helene informs Patrick that Beatrice has been forbidden to visit and is upset about her husband's arrest. Helene has no babysitter for Amanda and when asked, she tells Patrick that Helene's friend, Dottie (Jill Quigg) will watch her, even though she has yet to ask Dottie herself. Patrick volunteers to watch Amanda, who is holding her old doll and watching television. Patrick asks Amanda about Mirabelle, only to hear Amanda inform him that her doll's name is "Annabelle" — implying that Helene did not know the name of her daughter's favorite toy.

Cast

Affleck directing on set at Meaney Park, Dorchester in May 2006.

• Casey Affleck - Patrick Kenzie
• Michelle Monaghan - Angie Gennaro
• Morgan Freeman - Captain Jack Doyle
• Ed Harris - Detective Sergeant Remy Bressant
• John Ashton - Detective Nick Poole
• Amy Ryan - Helene McCready
• Madeline O'Brien - Amanda McCready
• Amy Madigan - Beatrice "Bea" McCready
• Titus Welliver - Lionel McCready
• Slaine - Bubba Rogowski
• Edi Gathegi - Cheese
• Mark Margolis - Leon Trett
• Michael K. Williams - Devin
• Jill Quigg - Dottie

Production

Filming took place on site in Boston (mainly South Boston) and extras were often local passers-by. Other locations used include the former Quincy Quarries.^[2]

Release

Released on October 19, 2007, the film grossed $20.3 million domestically and $14.3 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $34.6 million, against its $19 million budget.^[3]

The UK release was originally set for December 28, 2007, but was pushed back to June 6, 2008, due to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.^[4] The Malaysian release was originally set for September 20, 2007, but was postponed to March 27, 2008, due to the kidnapping and murder of eight-year-old Nurin Jazlin.

Reception

Critical reception

The film garnered a positive reception from critics and audiences. The movie won an assortment of awards, including Best First Film for Ben Affleck from the Austin Film Critics Association. As of April 25, 2014, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported 94% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 173 reviews, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The critical consensus states that "Ben Affleck proves his directing credentials in this gripping dramatic thriller, drawing strong performances from the excellent cast and bringing working-class Boston to the screen."^[5] The review aggregator Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 72 out of 100, based on 34 reviews.^[6]

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone raved "The brothers Affleck both emerge triumphant in this mesmerizing thriller,"^[7] while the New York Post called it "a twisty, morally ambiguous and satisfying neo-noir."^[8] Patrick Radden Keefe criticized the film for overstating the case in an otherwise laudable attempt to "capture Boston in all its sordid glory," writing that "The result is not so much what Mean Streets did for New York as what Deliverance did for Appalachia."^[9]

In the U.K., Gone Baby Gone received extremely positive reviews, including a five-star rating from Chris Tookey of the Daily Mail.^[10]

Ryan's performance in particular was singled out for acclaim, resulting in wins for the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress and National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress, as well as nominations for the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award.

In an issue of Vrij Nederland, Dutch critic and writer Arnon Grunberg called the book good, but the movie better, saying "Gone Baby Gone might not be a perfect film, but it's definitely an important one, if only to raise the question: 'What is home?'"^[11]

Top 10 lists

The film appeared on 65 critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2007.^[12][13]

• 2nd – Christy Lemire, Associated Press^[14]
• 4th – Ben Lyons, The Daily 10
• 6th – Richard Roeper, At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper
• 6th – Michael Medved, The Best and Worst of 2007
• 7th – James Berardinelli, ReelViews
• 8th – Noel Murray, The A.V. Club
• 9th – Keith Phipps, The A.V. Club

Awards and nominations

Home media

The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on February 12, 2008. Extras include an audio commentary by Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard, deleted scenes, and two behind-the-scenes featurettes. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray in Australia on September 10, 2008, in which the ending depicts Monaghan's character imploring Affleck's character to return the child to her biological mother.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack to Gone Baby Gone was released on October 16, 2007.

References

External links

• Official website
• Gone Baby Gone at the Internet Movie Database
• Gone Baby Gone at Rotten Tomatoes
• Gone Baby Gone at Metacritic
• Gone Baby Gone at Box Office Mojo
• Gone Baby Gone at AllMovie
• "Human Frailty and Pain on Boston's Mean Streets". The New York Times. October 19, 2007. 

Dennis Lehane
Bibliography	Kenzie-Gennaro novels A Drink Before the War (1994) Darkness, Take My Hand (1996) Sacred (1997) Gone, Baby, Gone (1998) Prayers for Rain (1999) Moonlight Mile (2010) Coughlin novels The Given Day (2008) Live by Night (2012) World Gone By (2015) Other works Mystic River (2001) Shutter Island (2003) Coronado: Stories (2006) The Drop (2014)
Filmography	Adaptations Mystic River (2003) Gone Baby Gone (2007) Shutter Island (2010) The Drop (2014) Live by Night (2016) Other The Wire "Dead Soldiers" "Refugees" "Clarifications" Boardwalk Empire "Resignation"