Gone Baby Gone Details

[Highly rated reviewer]

Gone Baby Gone

Here in the UK ' Gone Baby Gone ' was due to be released in December of last year but due to it having a very similar story to the highly publicised real life disappearance of four year Madeleine McCann who went missing in Portugal while on her holiday with her parents , it has yet to be released .Unfortunately she it has still not been found.

I managed to get hold of a copy ( Don't ask how! ) and apart from the fact that the girl is four and looks remarkably like Madeleine the story has very little in common with the tragic case here in Britain. Hopefully when British tabloid press stops their obsession with the McCann case and the truth of what REALLY happened comes out , Gone Baby Gone will get a UK release.

The story begins in the Boston neighborhood of Dorchester, where the gritty, working-class streets are lined with the wreckage of broken families and dreams. It is here that 4 year-old Amanda McCready has gone missing without a trace. The police have failed to turn up even the narrowest of leads, so Amanda's desperate Aunt and Uncle plead with local private investigators Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and Angie Genarro (Michelle Monaghan) to take the case.

Without a doubt the best thing to come from this film is the performance of Casey Affleck . I was far more impressed with Casey than His brother Ben who directed the film . Ben Affleck managed to catch the gritty feel of a depressed working class Boston suburb but fails miserably to make the story clear enough for the viewer to understand . Or maybe it was just me.!

Half the way through i felt confused to the point of irritation and although it does become clearer near the end what happened to Amanda it felt too contrived and too far fetched to bring me around to loving this film.

It felt a bit of a mess times and it showed that the director was a rookie.

Looking at some of the reviews i have seen i think a few might disagree!

Amy Ryan has received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress and although her performance was good i don't think it merits an academy award. Casey Affleck on the other hand is a massive star in the making.

6 out of 10

What would YOU do?

My sister, who lives overseas, had told me about this movie months ago. At the time, they were comparing the movie to Maddie's disappearance, which in all honesty is the silliest comparison of all time! I am annoyed that we, in Britain have been kept waiting so long to see this brilliant movie, so as not to offend the McCann's or whatever stupid reason!

I am sensitive to what the McCanns are going through, but it's important to keep in mind that there are other children in the world that have gone missing too.It seems ludicrous to prohibit the public from viewing a film so as not to offend a select few!When it comes to this film the similarities start and end with the fact that a young girl is abducted who looks as pretty as Maddie. What follows completely diverts from the Maddie Saga.This movie stands on it's own feet and is brilliantly put together, so I commend the Affleck brothers for dealing with the material with great sensitivity and courage. I say courage because the journey the viewer is taken on is dark, complex and cold, and what is revealed leaves the viewer torn, to say the least. It's a question that leaves one pondering on whether doing the right thing would have been better than doing the noble thing for the child? The answer is not an easy one. The film was flawless, Affleck's role not an easy one, was handled very masterfully and I doubt any other actor could have been as convincing. All I can say is that this film deserves to be seen, not only for it's masterpiece storyline but because it's one of those rare films that makes us wonder: 'What would I do if I were in his shoes?'