Gone Baby Gone

Having never read the source novel, I have no idea just how much Ben Affleck cut from the original story. Given some of the editing techniques in the second half, I suspect quite a lot. Even so, the plot becomes fiendishly complicated and the viewer really has to pay attention. And what a relief it is to be confronted with a film that doesn't treat the audience like idiots. This is a refreshingly grown-up film that doesn't tie everything up neatly with a bow. By the end you feel that Kenzie, although taking the moral - and legal - high ground might actually be wrong while Angie, adopting a more pragmatic approach, could very well be right. It's a moral quagmire where noone really wins. This makes the private detective couple's earlier comment that their involvement couldn't do any harm even more ironic. By the time they've finished, people are dead and their relationship is in tatters. The acting is top class, although Michelle Monaghan seems miscast. Angie should have a bit more spikiness about her for her two key scenes to ring true. However, the rest of the actors are terrific. I could watch Ed Harris all day and his Remy is unreadable. You sense that maybe he's not all that he seems but can't be sure. Amy Ryan as the neglectful mother gives an astonishing performance. The scene where she lays into her sister-in-law will draw gasps for it's sheer viciousness - and this from a woman who at that moment is supposed to be helping the police find her missing daughter. The film really works though because of Casey Affleck. There's a running joke in the first half about his youthful looks (greeted with increasing irritation each time) but there's steel beneath that innocent exterior. Watch the bar scene to see just how dangerous he can be. He might get all self-righteous at the end but before that he's killed a man in cold blood. While others greet him as a hero for this action, that's not how he views it himself. Maybe that's why he makes the decision he does at the end. For him, the end doesn't justify the means. You fear he's made the wrong choice.