Gone Baby Gone

It was "only" a good film until the final reveal, but then it became a great film, one of those that really makes you think about how you would have acted yourself. And that's valuable these days. I love Dennis Lehane's books and it's a good thing that this one I couldn't get hold of for so long and unlike Mystic River or Shutter Island I hadn't read it before the film. My surprise and my experience were all the greater. I think Morgan Freeman gave one of his best performances ever in a relatively small space. (15/03/2015)

This story looks like a classic. One crime that not only changes the lives of all involved, but completely turns them upside down. And all with the help of a constantly twisting script, which is so cleverly narrated that you won't start twisting at any turn, wondering what we just saw. And when something similar almost happens, like during the key action at the quarry, the voiceover of the main character immediately assures you that you are definitely not alone in it. What surprises me the most is how quickly the story won me over, so that despite the anonymity and ordinariness of the character Patrick, I was scared of him after a few minutes and experienced all the crucial decisions with him. Affleck's directorial certainty is therefore an unimaginable promise not only for the genre. (09/03/2008)

A quality film for one evening. It's not an Oscar-worthy masterpiece, nor a film that you could watch twenty times and still discover something new, it's ordinary, austere, technically simple, and quite effective in certain moments. But the storyline isn't that elaborate, and many things can be guessed from the course of the film. Above all, Ed Harris is outstanding. The ending didn't deliver the catharsis I expected, but it has a logical culmination. Ben Affleck is definitely better behind the camera than in front of it, and I think that has surprised many film fans, especially since it's his directorial debut. (10/08/2008)

I can forgive a lot of things, but the fact that the film gets virtually nowhere despite three tons of moralizing and wannabe "think about that" bullshit, hardly. I'm not of the opinion that a film needs to have a statement, but if it's fucking pretending to be one all the time, it could at least live up to expectations. An asterisk for the scene in the pedophile's lair. (10/11/2009)

Without a final twist and uncompromisingly leaving the question “What is right?”, it would only have been a thriller with brilliant direction and performances, but with that Gone Baby Gone becomes an exceptionally intense experience and a superb drama. But is the answer to that question really that hard? Not for me. (28/07/2008)