After sitting on our tv stand literally for months, I finally had some free time to watch Gone Baby Gone today on my day off. This is a 2007 film directed by Ben Affleck, and starring his brother Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Ed Harris, and Morgan Freeman. Heck, it even has John Ashton (from the Beverly Hills Cop series), Amy Madigan, Amy Ryan (The Office), and Titus Welliver (The Good Wife.) It’s based on a book by Dennis Lehane, who also wrote Mystic River. This is the story of two private detectives who are hired to help find 4-year old Amanda McCready who disappears from her home. These two detectives (Affleck, Monaghan) are inexperienced, but know many contacts within their world of this particular tough Boston neighborhood. They face drug dealers, gangs, and pedophiles. It’s a world littered with broken families, hearts, dreams. In the middle of all of this is constant reminder of this lost, innocent little girl.
I thought this was a fantastic story. You immediately get a sense of this down-on-its-luck blue-collar neighborhood, and a very personal story about a family that loses a child, and the hunt to find her. The cinematography really worked for me, as it brought me right into the story. The story itself progressed in ways that I did not expect. It transforms into a highly disturbing tale of selfish, terrifying characters, and people who will never change. There is a lot of depth to the story, and Ben Affleck, as maligned as he’s been as an actor, does a superb job here as director.
In terms of the blu-ray video and audio presentation, I thought it was all good. The video is 1080p, lots of detail, and the drab colors accentuate the dismal conditions of the Boston environment. The audio is a 5.1 Linear PCM, so you can enjoy the uncompressed audio. It’s not a bombastic soundtrack. In fact, it’s very quiet, but it worked overall.
Gone Baby Gone (2007)