Gone Baby Gone

Director: Ben Affleck Ben Affleck

Overview

Ben Affleck's adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel Gone, Baby, Gone stars Casey Affleck as Patrick Kenzie, a private investigator from working-class Boston who takes on a case involving a kidnapped girl. The girl's aunt begs Patrick to take the case because he has connections to criminal Boston that the police do not. He agrees and along with his partner, Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan), they uncover a web of corruption that threatens the relationship between the two. Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman co-star as members of the Boston Police Department.

Product Details

Release Date:	01/12/2021
UPC:	0032429351036
Original Release:	2007
Rating:	R
Source:	PARAMOUNT
Language:	English
Time:	1:53:00
Sales rank:	16,572

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Casey Affleck	Patrick Kenzie
Michelle Monaghan	Angie Gennaro
Morgan Freeman	Jack Doyle
Ed Harris	Remy Bressant
Amy Ryan	Helene McCready
Amy Madigan	Bea McCready
John Ashton	Nick Poole
Titus Welliver	Lionel McCready
Mark Margolis	Actor
Michael Kenneth Williams	Devin
Edi Gathegi	Cheese
Madeline O'Brien	Actor
Slaine	Actor
Trudi Goodman	Actor
Matthew Maher	Actor
Jill Quigg	Actor
Brian Scannell	Actor
Sean Malone	Actor
Jay Giannone	Actor
William Lee	Actor
William Marlowe	Actor
Daniel De Miller Jr.	Actor
Kenneth Butler Jr.	Actor
Stephen Curran	Actor
Michael Blythe	Actor
Bob Leary	Actor
Mike Pusateri	Actor
Paul Sullivan	Actor
John McColgam	Actor
Nicholas Donovan	Actor
Joseph Thomas	Kid on Bike
Jimmy LeBlanc	Chris Mullen
Mary Bounphasaysonh	Cheese's Girl
Fanshen Cox	Doyle's Secretary
Kippy Goldfarb	Francine Doyle
Elizabeth Duff	Mrs. Bressant
Cathie Callanan	Mrs. Poole
Cameron Henry	Jimmy Pietro
Bobby Curcuro	Bobby
Kevin Molis	Officer in Procession
Slain	Actor
Harry Gregson-Williams	Composer

Technical Credits

Ben Affleck

Aaron Stockard

Dennis Lehane

Ben Affleck	Director,Screenwriter
Aaron Stockard	Screenwriter
Dan Rissner	Producer,Producer
Alan Ladd Jr.	Producer
Sean Bailey	Producer
David Crockett	Executive Producer,Producer
Dennis Lehane	Screenwriter
Chay Carter	Producer
Kevin Browne	Special Effects
Steve Bartkowicz	Sound Effects
Ron Bedrosian	Sound Effects
Victor Ray Ennis	Sound Effects
Jordon Esbin	Sound Effects
Nerses Gezalyan	Sound Effects
Amanda Lamb	Producer
Donna Morong	Casting
Nadia Aleyd	Casting
Alan Rankin	Sound/Sound Designer
Jeff Largent	Sound/Sound Designer
Dan Risser	Producer

Editorial Reviews

There is an old adage that defines the difference between "plot" and "story." The plot is that the queen dies and then the king dies, but the story is that the queen dies and then the king dies of a broken heart. Ben Affleck's directorial debut, an adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel Gone Baby Gone gets the plot right, but neglects the story. The movie has a deliberate, occasionally ponderous, pace, but the plot -- involving the attempts by private detectives to assist the police in finding a kidnapped little girl -- involves so many twists and turns that the film never becomes boring. Casey Affleck is rock solid as detective Patrick Kenzie, who, with his professional and personal partner Angie Genero (Michelle Monaghan), uses his working-class Boston contacts to uncover information the police might have overlooked. Ben Affleck approaches directing much like the award-winning screenwriter that he is. Within each scene there is an important piece of information that must be communicated, and he makes sure that the necessary information gets to the audience. He painstakingly keeps the audience right with the often complicated motivations of the characters. In lesser hands that style might have come off as talking down to the audience, not trusting the viewer to be able to keep up with the intricacies, but instead the film plays as if Ben Affleck was afraid to veer away from the plot because he might mess up. As a director, he seems to believe that if he just gets the plot points down, he'll be fine, and while those are good instincts to have, he needed to trust himself and his actors a little more. The movie comes down to a hefty moral decision Patrick must make, one that will deeply affect the relationship he shares with Angie. This payoff never reaches the emotional crescendo it should, in part because by failing to take his eyes off the plot, the director never gives us the history between his two lead characters. The film is almost too faithful to the novel in that the rich history between these characters flourished over the course of the previous three books in the series, making it unnecessary for Lehane to linger extensively on their history in order to make his remarkable book achieve its devastating climax. The actors are game, but they haven't been given the chance to showcase the depth or intensity of their feelings for each other. Ben Affleck shows promise as a director with Gone Baby Gone -- now he just needs to gain a little more confidence.