Ben Affleck Has Done an Excellent Job with “Gone, Baby, Gone”

Ben Affleck makes a successful directorial debut with the critically acclaimed drama / thriller "Gone, Baby, Gone" which despite grossing a total of $11,310,000 since being released two weeks ago (which is relatively small in Hollywood terms) can boast an excellent cast, challenging plot with many surprise twists and turns and excellent rendition of the atmosphere and workings of both the police and the criminal life in Affleck's native Boston.

And it's in Boston that the film begins, with a frantic search for a young child gone missing. Patrick Kenzie, (Casey Affleck) a private investigator, is hired by the aunt of the missing girl to help the police under Chief Doyle (Morgan Freeman) talk to "the neighborhood people" who are reluctant to talk to the police. It is soon revealed that Helene, the missing child's mother is a drug addict who has put her daughter in danger many times in the past and may have done the same again – as it is soon revealed that Helene and her boyfriend Skinny Ray had stolen $130.000 from a local drug lord.

What follows is a race against time to find the missing girl, and then a surprising plot twist when she is apparently found dead. But in this movie that deals with such issues as police corruption, drug dealing and life in suburban Boston, appearances can be very deceiving and nothing is what it first seems to be. The movie pictures the main character's descent into a world governed by different rules than the ones he thinks he understands, and marked by self-doubt and a struggle to come to terms with his own limits. The end provides a controversial, morally doubtful resolution that is neither comforting nor aimed at providing any comfort for the audience, and raises more doubts rather than provide answers.

One fact that is interesting to note is that the movie was set for release in the UK on 28 December 2007, but its release has been suspended indefinitely due to its similarities with a real-life situation, the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, a British young girl who went missing on the 3rd of May this year in the resort of Praia da Luz in the Algarve, Portugal, just days short of her fourth birthday. The event has since generated international media attention with controversy surrounding the Portuguese-led police investigation and the actions of Madeleine's parents – in an eerie similarity with the events depicted by Ben Affleck's movie. A sad but well-made and well-acted movie which deserves your attention and which will leave you with more questions than answers – which I suspect is what Affleck intended in the first place.



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