Gone Baby Gone

Gone, Baby, Gone Review

Ben Affleck's appalling recent acting credits such as "Surviving Christmas", "Jersey Girl", "Paycheck" and "Gigli" - to name but a few - would suggest that he has lost any ability he once had to tell the difference between right and wrong. Therefore, it comes as a great surprise that his directorial debut "Gone, Baby, Gone" - a detective story set in his home city of Boston and based on the novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane ("Mystic River") - not only articulates the question "How do you tell the difference between right and wrong?", but does so in a way that is both slick and thought-provoking.

When four-year-old Amanda McCready goes missing and the police fail to turn up any leads, her aunt and uncle hire private investigators Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and Angie Genarro (Michelle Monaghan) in the hope that the neighbourhood will talk to Patrick and Angie in a way that they wouldn't to the cops. Patrick and Angie's local knowledge allows them to make some progress, such as exposing Amanda's mother Helene's involvement in a drug deal gone wrong as the probable cause for Amanda's abduction. But in spite of teaming up with veteran police detectives Remy Bressant (Ed Harris) and Nick Poole (John Aston), even this apparently significant lead turns out to be a dead end. Weeks pass by and all hope of finding Amanda is lost. However, Patrick knows there's something not quite right about the way Amanda's case played out. Reviewing the facts, he discovers both corruption and good intentions, which forces him to make a difficult moral decision that could jeopardise his relationship with Angie.

The UK release of "Gone Baby Gone" was severely delayed by the real life disappearance of Madeleine McCann, which is a shame because the film satirises perfectly the media's sensationalist and unhelpful response to cases such as Madeleine's, and would have made for an interesting counterpoint had it been showing during the height of the "Maddie" media frenzy. However, this isn't the only way that "Gone Baby Gone" touches the real world. Affleck casts Boston residents alongside Hollywood stars to create a realistic texture for the movie. All of which goes towards convincing the audience to ask themselves what choices they would have made if they were in Patrick's flat shoes. This is something Affleck achieves brilliantly, without a trace of ego or consideration for the commercial value of the film.

The cast - without exception - are excellent. Rising star Casey Affleck will deflect accusations of nepotism as casually as his character pistol-whips a barfly for disrespecting Angie. Special mention goes to Amy Ryan as the belligerent junkie Helene for making it impossible for Patrick - and by extension the audience - to tell what kind of mother she really is to Amanda.

The biggest twist in "Gone, Baby, Gone" is that against all expectations it's a really, really good movie. Somewhat worryingly, Ben Affleck's two current in-production credits are for acting roles, but if he decides to pursue directing off the back of "Gone, Baby, Gone", he could easily follow in the career-saving footsteps of that other 'Lehane director', Clint Eastwood.