Gone Baby Gone

A powerful drama, very well written, but above all brilliantly directed. I’m inclined to agree with the opinion about the intellectual overtones mentioned several times here, the dilemma that is transferred from the main character to the viewer at the end is impressive and the last shot, my God, is perfection itself. And most importantly, the whole narrative has oomph and it doesn't matter if it's the chillingly harsh scene with a paedophile in the second half of the film or a simple dialogue between the two protagonists. A true joy to watch. And Casey Affleck? He articulates weird, he looks weird, he acts weird, but all of that together create a very interesting person that I couldn't take my eyes off. Ben, in the future, act as you did in Hollywoodland, while continuing to develop your undoubted directorial talent, and I have no choice but to repeat myself: "It was a great pleasure." (28/01/2008)

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. (09/11/2009)

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)

Bad Baby Bad. Disappointing in every way! The story is confusing and disjointed. Ben Affleck directs as much as he acts: like a teenager with attention deficit disorder. The characters were uninteresting, unmotivated and poorly cast. The dialogue lacked drive, it was clichéd and incomprehensible. Overall, I found this film very boring to the point of absurdity. It lacked suspense and atmosphere. There was almost nothing positive here! Affleck has picked up the wrong profession. I didn't enjoy it. 40%. (19/01/2014)

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. (09/08/2008)