Review: Gone Baby Gone, Where The Good Guys Are Bad.
- Jan 22, 2017
- 2 min read
According the cinema, Boston has the highest crime rate and the most useless twists per person than any other country on the planet.
When a young girl goes missing, two private investigators are hired to work with the police to find out where she has gone and, most importantly, if she's still alive. But, as Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) soon finds out, everything is not as it appears.
Let's get the good stuff out of the way first, namely because there's less of it. The acting is solid across the board with standout performances by Affleck and Ed Harris, both playing to their strengths. Harris is by far the highlight of the film, as he usually is, giving his character conviction, anger and, where necessary, just enough humanity to make him feel real. The directing, courtesy of Ben Affleck in his directing debut, is decent enough, even if there are a number of small choices that left me puzzled.
Now, onto the parts I didn't like. As a whole, the movies not bad but the plot as a whole left a bad taste in my mouth. If it wasn't characters behaving in aggravating ways it was poor writing or additional scenes that added to the characters but had no impact on the overall film. Add to this a twist, half of which I saw coming before the halfway point, the other half being completely undeserved and unnecessary, and you get a film that is, all at once, grippingly good yet infuriatingly stupid.
Is Gone Baby Gone a movie worth watching? Ultimately, yes, yes it is, despite the glaring flaws, and there are many, most of it is an interesting crime drama, at least up until the third act when it starts thinking it's smarter than it actually is.
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