Gone Baby Gone

Gone Baby Gone is a 2007 American neo-noir mystery thriller film directed by Ben Affleck. In his feature-length directorial debut, Affleck co-wrote the screenplay with Aaron Stockard based on the 1998 novel Gone, Baby, Gone by Dennis Lehane. The film stars Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan as two private investigators hunting for a young girl abducted from her single mother's apartment in the Boston neighborhood of Dorchester. The supporting cast includes Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris and Amy Ryan.

Released on October 19, 2007, the film was well-received by critics and grossed $34.6 million worldwide against its $19 million budget. Ben Affleck was lauded for his directing debut by many critic organizations. Amy Ryan received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Plot
In a run-down neighborhood in Dorchester, Boston, three-year-old Amanda McCready has been abducted along with her favourite doll, Mirabelle. P.I. Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and his partner and girlfriend Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan) witness a televised plea for Amanda's return by her mother, Helene (Amy Ryan), amid a media frenzy. The girl's aunt Bea hires them to find Amanda.

Using his connections in the Boston crime underground, Patrick discovers that Helene and her boyfriend "Skinny Ray" were drug mules for a local Haitian drug lord named Cheese, and had recently stolen $130,000 from him. After discovering Ray has been murdered by Cheese's men, Patrick and Angie join police detectives Remy Bressant (Ed Harris) and Nick Poole in investigating the case. They believe that Cheese may have taken Amanda.

Patrick meets with Cheese and tries to negotiate the return of Cheese's stolen money in exchange for Amanda, but Cheese initially denies any involvement in the girl's disappearance. Police Captain Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman) later reads Patrick a telephone transcript of Cheese calling into the station to set up an exchange for Amanda. The exchange at a nearby quarry is botched after a gunfight breaks out, killing Cheese. It is believed that Amanda fell in the quarry and drowned; her doll is retrieved from the water and returned to Helene. Doyle, whose own daughter was killed years before, takes responsibility for the death and goes into early retirement following public outcry over the mishap.

Two months later, a seven-year-old boy is abducted in Everett, and Patrick receives information that he was taken by Corwin Earle, a known child molester. After entering the suspect's house and finding evidence of the abducted boy, Patrick returns with Remy and Nick late at night to rescue him. A shootout ensues and Nick is fatally wounded. Patrick enters the house and finds the boy's dead body, then shoots the surrendering Corwin in the back of the head in a fit of rage. Trying to alleviate Patrick's guilt, Remy confides that he once planted evidence on someone with the help of "Skinny Ray". Patrick later remembers that Remy had told him he didn't know Ray.

Nick dies of his injuries. After his funeral, Patrick speaks to a police officer named Devin who tells him that Remy had known about Cheese's stolen money before Cheese knew it was missing. Patrick questions Bea's husband Lionel 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 teach Helene a lesson. At that point, Remy (trying to cover for his earlier mistake) enters the bar wearing a latex mask and holding a shotgun, staging a robbery to interrupt the conversation. Patrick realizes that Remy plans to kill him and Lionel to keep them quiet, 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 from his wounds.

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 then drive to Doyle's home, where they find Amanda alive and well. Doyle was part of the kidnapping all along and helped set up the fake exchange to frame Cheese and throw Patrick off the scent. Patrick threatens to call the authorities but Doyle tries to convince him that Amanda is better off living with him than with her neglectful, cocaine-using mother.

Patrick leaves and discusses the choice with Angie; she believes Amanda is happy and safe with Doyle, and says she will hate Patrick if he returns Amanda to her mother. Patrick decides to call the police to collect Amanda, as he believes she belongs with her mother. Doyle and Lionel are arrested, Amanda is returned to her mother with heightened publicity, and Patrick and Angie break up.

Patrick later visits Amanda as Helene is about to leave for a date, not yet knowing who would babysit, and he volunteers to watch the girl. Patrick asks Amanda about the doll Mirabelle, only to have 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

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

Release
Released on October 19, 2007, the film grossed $20.3 million in the U.S. and Canada and $14.3 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $34.6 million against its $19 million budget.

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. 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.

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. , 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." The review aggregator Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 72 out of 100, based on 34 reviews.

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone raved "The brothers Affleck both emerge triumphant in this mesmerizing thriller," while the New York Post called it "a twisty, morally ambiguous and satisfying neo-noir." 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."

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

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?'"

Top 10 lists
The film appeared on 65 critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2007.


 * 2nd – Christy Lemire, Associated Press
 * 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

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.