Running time: 114 minutes
Starring: Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, John Ashton, Amy Ryan
Rating 7 out of 10
Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) is not your archetypal, hard-drinking, hard-living gnarly fictional private detective in the mould of a Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe. Instead he's of the slight, youthful and baby-faced variety. But what he lacks in stature and years he makes up for in courage and an unimpeachable integrity. And it's Kenzie's moral conflict that provides this tightly-wound, absorbing thriller with its forceful ending. Gone Baby Gone marks an impressive directorial job by Casey's older brother Ben who, on this evidence, is more effective behind the camera than he is in front of it. Based on the novel by Dennis Lehane, the film explores similar themes to those of Lehane's Mystic River as it centres on the loss of a young girl. In this case it's a kidnapping, which, in light of Madeleine McCann's disappearance, has resulted in the postponed release of the film in the UK.
When 4 year-old Amanda McCready is abducted from the Boston home of her drug-addicted mother Helene (Amy Ryan), Amanda's aunt Bea (Amy Madigan) and Bea's husband Lionel (Titus Welliver) hire Kenzie to help in the search. With the reluctant approval of police chief Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman), Kenzie and his professional and personal partner Angie (Michelle Monaghan) are assisted by the two detectives assigned to the case, Remy Bressant (Ed Harris) and Nick Poole (John Ashton). The investigation takes a series of unexpected twists before Kenzie finds himself faced with a wrenching dilemma.
Casey Affleck is very effectual as the tenacious Kenzie, though his presence as an actor is put in perspective alongside the intensity of Harris' portrayal of the corrupted Bressant. Co-written by Aaron Stockard and Ben Affleck, Gone Baby Gone is Affleck's first screenwriting credit since winning an Oscar for Good Will Hunting. Serviceable rather than memorable, the script takes a few spurious turns along the way but sustains its focus and level of energy throughout while raising a valid parental question about legal rights versus moral rights.
As a private eye, Kenzie lacks the complexity and colour to warrant further cases unlike his more illustrious cinematic predecessors, but it will be interesting to see if Ben Affleck takes the reins again or will his directing career match his fitful one as a writer. If so, he will have left a commendable legacy.
Kevin Murphy
