Gone Baby Gone

[Downhome 0]

 

When a young girl is stolen from her home, a pair of investigators search desperately for the child in the streets of Boston.

 

http://youtube.com/watch?v=j_F_SH07nsE

 

http://www.gonebabygone-themovie.com/

 

It's directed and co-written by Ben Affleck, staring his younger brother Casey. Also on board is Morgan Freeman, Michelle Monaghan, and Ed Harris. It's based on the novel by Dennis Lehane, most famous up to this point for being the author of Mystic River, an eventual Oscar winning film.

 

I'm really going to be pulling for this flick, and more specifically for Ben Affleck. People have been giving him shit for years, myself included, and with good reason. However, maybe behind the camera is actually his niche, and where he belongs in the grand scheme of Hollywood. The trailer looks fantastic, the leads appear to be doing a great job, the direction looks very solid, the screenplay is great, and overall the film looks to me like it could indeed be of high quality.

 

It opens this Friday, 10/19/07.

[HollywoodSpikeJenkins 0]

When I saw the preview, I began to wonder who gave Casey Affleck a lead in a major picture. Not that its a bad thing, as I think he's a very talented actor. I hope it does well.

[4hartthreat 0]

Add me to the list of those excited about this. The trailer is very good. The only thing that jumps out at me as award attention getting is Harris though. Oh and Ben already has an Oscar.

[2GOLD 0]

 

I will never forgive Casey Affleck for his role in "Gerry". However Ben was fantastic in Hollywoodland so he is forgiven and honestly, never had a problem with him anyway. I never understood the whole "Hate Ben or Matt" shit that people have. I got no issues with either.

 

Good cast to this film, I'll have to keep an eye out.

[Black Lushus 0]

I don't think Matt really ever got hate. Anyone that hates him needs to watch the Departed and the Ocean and Bourne movies and shut the fuck up.

[HollywoodSpikeJenkins 0]

No one ever really hated Matt. He is too talented. Ben, on the other hand, took a lot of projects at one point and phoned most of them in just for a paycheck. That is where the hate came from.

[Boon 0]

No one ever really hated Matt. He is too talented. Ben, on the other hand, took a lot of projects at one point and phoned most of them in just for a paycheck. That is where the hate came from.

Probably why he got along with Kevin Smith so well.

 

I'm looking forward to this.

[2GOLD 0]

 

I've talked too and met quite a few people who hate Matt. Can't stand his work, hate all his movies and don't get why anyone thinks he is a good actor.

 

 

[Black Lushus 0]

I've talked too and met quite a few people who hate Matt. Can't stand his work, hate all his movies and don't get why anyone thinks he is a good actor.

 

they should heed my advice from an earlier post.

[2GOLD 0]

I've talked too and met quite a few people who hate Matt. Can't stand his work, hate all his movies and don't get why anyone thinks he is a good actor.

 

they should heed my advice from an earlier post.

 

Don't look at me man, the only movie of Matt I have hated is "Gerry". And thats only because Gus Van Sant is a two bit hack who thinks walking around for an hour and 15 minutes without dialogue of a 1:30 movie is a good plan.

[Black Lushus 0]

I've talked too and met quite a few people who hate Matt. Can't stand his work, hate all his movies and don't get why anyone thinks he is a good actor.

 

they should heed my advice from an earlier post.

 

Don't look at me man, the only movie of Matt I have hated is "Gerry". And thats only because Gus Van Sant is a two bit hack who thinks walking around for an hour and 15 minutes without dialogue of a 1:30 movie is a good plan.

 

shit, that sounds like "Elephant"...did they kiss as well?

[Nighthawk 0]

In Elephant, they play a Gerry video game. Cute reference there.

[2GOLD 0]

I've talked too and met quite a few people who hate Matt. Can't stand his work, hate all his movies and don't get why anyone thinks he is a good actor.

 

they should heed my advice from an earlier post.

 

Don't look at me man, the only movie of Matt I have hated is "Gerry". And thats only because Gus Van Sant is a two bit hack who thinks walking around for an hour and 15 minutes without dialogue of a 1:30 movie is a good plan.

 

shit, that sounds like "Elephant"...did they kiss as well?

 

No, but Matt does lean over him in a very odd way. At first I thought they were about to make out, turns out Matt was just choking him to death for some reason. Not sure why but by that point of listening to "clomp clomp clomp clomp", I was just glad something was happening.

[Downhome 0]

Right now GBG is at 92% overall at RT, and 100% "Cream of the Crop". At IMDB it's sitting at 8.7 with 431 votes.

[Black Lushus 0]

well Casey's not that bad of an actor and when you have Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris in supporting roles, it's hard to Michael Bay a movie.

[cabbageboy 0]

I saw this tonight and it was pretty good. Not a **** classic like some reviewers are saying, but a *** movie. It was very good up until the following stuff started happening:

 

After the ultra intense scene with the crazy group of pedophiles at the house Ed Harris tells Casey about how he planted evidence years ago, etc. Anyway this basically leads to Harris doing a heel turn and we find out he and the little girl's uncle were in on the kidnapping all along. Further, they were doing it over drug money and to also give Morgan Freeman's character a new daughter since his girl was killed years before by a nutjob.

 

This was interesting stuff yet it reeked of the goofy plot twist endings that permeate films today. It really reminded me of Minority Report minus the sci fi elements. Imagine though if Colin Farrell did a heel turn on Cruise and THEN we get the Max Von Sydow heel turn at the end on top of it. That's what GBG was like.

 

[Downhome 0]

I saw it, and loved it. I can't remember the last time a film made me think, not just about anything, but actually made me question my morals in a specific situation. Just forget everything else that's great about this flick - that one single point alone scores enough points for me, and everything else just pushes it over the edge. The acting was very solid, Casey Affleck is well on his way to being a star, the direction was just fine, and more than anything else most of the flick, especially everything going around in the various scenes, felt real (and with good reason).

 

I didn't mind the "twist" at all, not because I'm giving it a pass, but because they dropped plenty of hints throughout the entire flick, and at the end with the "twist" being revealed, it was like all of the pieces finally fitting together.

 

As for what I said above, about making me think, it really did. Just what would I do in that situation? Which decision really would be for the best? Patrick made his decision base on what he felt would truly be best for the child. In doing so, it cost him dearly. He got pretty much no thanks for bringing the child home, not from anyone in the family, not from the mother, not even from his own girlfriend. Not even the public since few even knew that he was involved in the situation, and the mother failed to mention him when speaking to reporters at the end. The scene with Patrick sitting with Amanda at the very end of the film was fantastic though. After seeing that the mother hasn't learned anything by going through all of this, she is still a horrible mother, I couldn't help but have a huge smile come across my face seeing Patrick sitting with Amanda. His job isn't even over, and because of that it looks like he made the best decision after all. Maybe not for himself personally, but for Amanda, because he's going to make sure that everything turns out fine for her.

 

Then, aside from the film itself, I really do believe that this will be remembered not only because of the quality of the picture, but also as a true starting point for the two Affleck brothers. In Casey it looks like he's well on his way to becoming a true star, and in Ben he's finally found where he belongs and will excel - behind the camera.

[cabbageboy 0]

I definitely agree about this, though you have to wonder why Casey did exactly what he did at the end there. For instance:

 

Why didn't he call Social Services once he found Amanda? Or rather why didn't they get involved once Doyle was arrested? I found it a bit hard to believe that the crackhead mom would simply get the girl back without any fuss. Or I dare say that maybe Affleck and Monaghan would end up with the girl at the end.

 

But yeah, there were some aspects to the ending I loved. I always like an ending where a guy does all this stuff, but in the end doesn't ever really get any reward for it beyond knowing what he did. Of all things it reminded me a little of Indiana Jones movies in that regard.

[MDH257 0]

While by no means is this a bad movie, I think it been very overated to be getting all of the 4 and 3 1/2 Star reviews it has. It's also very frustraing that after taking so much care to cast locals as extras and getting so many of the actors to look realisticly gritty (especially Amy Ryan), we have Michelle Monaghan sticking out like a sore thumb with an essentially useless character. It seemed to me that the only reason she's there is because somebody decided "there's gotta be a chick" in the story.

That moment where she jumps into the revine, without hesitation, is just asinine.

[bobobrazil1984 0]

I actually just finished the book, haven't seen the movie yet. The book was excellent, and from reading everybody's comments its seems like a faithful translation, the "twists" are pretty much note for note from the book. In regards to the above post, Gone Baby Gone is actually one in a series of novels about the two PIs, Patrick and Angie, so that's the real reason why Monoghan's character is there. Would NOT have pegged Casey Affleck as patrick though. Ed Harris seems like a good fit as Bruossard.

[Mik 0]

I saw this last night. It was good, but it was also very depressing.