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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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You, the Living
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Gone Baby Gone
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 34 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 91 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Crime | Drama | Mystery
Written by:
Dennis Lehane (novel)
Aaron Stockard
Ben Affleck
Directed by: Ben Affleck
Release Date:
Theatrical: October 19, 2007
DVD: February 12, 2008
Running Time: 114 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for violence, drug content and pervasive language
Starring Casey Affleck, Morgan Freeman, Cathie Callanan, John Ashton, Madeline O'Brien, Michelle Monaghan, and Ed Harris
Gone Baby Gone follows the explosive case of just one missing little girl. But inside this investigation lie secrets and a labyrinthine maze of class and corruption, evil and innocence...all leading up to one man's extraordinary choice in a world where right and wrong have become blurred. (Miramax)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Though its procedural goes a little soft in the middle, Gone Baby Gone quietly accumulates in power, leading to one of the more subtly devastating final shots in recent memory.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Gone Baby Gone is powerful stuff - a movie that derives its plot twists from moral conundrums rather than from narrative sleight of hand.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
There is a compelling ethical question raised skillfully that will haunt viewers. The poignant conclusion probably will incite debate.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Gone Baby Gone is full of dark secrets, and how they unravel will keep you glued.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The result is a superior police procedural, and something more -- a study in devious human nature.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
The joke's on us, it turns out; as a director, Affleck has come through with a sharp, morally ambiguous piece of pulp crackerjack.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Gone Baby Gone would be an accomplishment with anyone at the helm; from a first-timer, it's a revelation.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
It's a fine debut, far more grounded, plausible and engrossing than most Hollywood thrillers.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
In the strongest scenes, Ben Affleck gets his lead actors to extract the bitter juice from Lehane's wood-alcohol prose. The movie has its horrifying Gothic twists and turns, but it's never better than when it takes these two into places where the underclass goes to forget or be forgotten or get lost.
Read Full Review >Empire Angie Errigo
A superior, haunting thriller of abduction, deception and ethical dilemma with a sobering ending - a moral quandary that demands strong debate outside the cinema.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
Ben Affleck directed and cowrote the script; his biggest gamble was casting his irksome little brother as a pistol-whipping tough guy, but the picture is so superbly executed in every other respect that Casey seems more quirky than miscast.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Manohla Dargis
One of the graces of Gone Baby Gone is its sensitivity to real struggle, to the lived-in spaces and worn-out consciences that can come when despair turns into nihilism.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Stephen Farber
It's a tribute to this thoughtful, deeply poignant, splendidly executed film that we replay the conclusion in our minds long after the lights come on.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Jim Ridley
In his strikingly downbeat directorial debut, Affleck has created something of a blue-moon rarity: an American movie of genuine moral complexity.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Fans of Lehane's Kenzie-Gennaro books will lament the fact that starting with the fourth book means losing the couple's extensive backstory, but the essence of their fragile, damaged bond comes through even if you don't know what shaped it.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
For all of Affleck's skill, he can't entirely put over a credulity-straining ending that probably worked better on the printed page. At the same time, the deeply disturbing windup of "Gone Baby Gone" is a real talker. And that's not something you can say about many movies these days.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
A story so good that maybe anybody could have turned out something decent.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Connie Ogle
The only real casualty of Lehane's novel is Angie, here reduced to a supporting player who bears no resemblance to the original character, who is every bit as smart and tough and interesting as her boyfriend. It's a regrettable loss in a film that otherwise indicates its first-time director knows what he's doing.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Casey's big brother has made a tough, taut mystery.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
The film's standout performance belongs to Ed Harris, who plays a Boston detective with decades of experience and an equal amount of built-up resentment toward people who would harm children.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar
Doesn’t always hit all the right notes...But in the end, Affleck displays a surprisingly sure hand, and Gone Baby Gone largely delivers.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
By and large a notable piece of work, a strong directing debut by actor Ben Affleck that highlights attention-getting performances...But, as adapted from the novel by Dennis Lehane, this brooding, somber film is also ragged around the edges and not without problematic aspects.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
The movie is taut, fast, achingly authentic and terribly melancholy.
Read Full Review >Variety Lisa Nesselson
Moral ambiguity is the real star of Ben Affleck's helming debut, Gone Baby Gone, an involving Boston-set tale of mixed motives, selflessness and perfidy in the wake of a 4-year-old girl's disappearance.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
Casey Affleck has never had a pedestal like the one his brother provides him, and he earns it. His Patrick is pale and raspy, with a slight grogginess that gives him an astounding vulnerability--and makes his bursts of temper shocking.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Affleck the director shows excellent instincts, not least of which is letting his younger brother, Casey, hold the center as a young guy not as smaht as he thinks he is.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
As a leading man, Casey Affleck has a nebbishy quality and a mumbly speaking voice that I personally find disruptive to a movie's flow.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
The story is patently implausible and unnecessarily confusing, and it works to a moral dilemma for its hero -- and a trick ending for the audience -- that resolves the action with so little satisfaction that you wish they hadn't bothered.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
The film is reasonably effective all the same, though Affleck has yet to learn how to conduct each scene like a musical score, paying attention to matters of tempo and dynamics.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
Very few movies end so much better than they begin. For that reason, and only that reason, this is an exceptional picture.
Read Full Review >Premiere Glenn Kenny
It's been well-publicized that Affleck, going for as authentic a feel as possible, cast many genuine South Bostoners in both extra and speaking roles, and, while that's salutary, in some scenes his strategy backfires, yielding caricatures that are merely more vivid than the ones turned out by Central Casting Hollywood productions.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
Ben Affleck probably respects Lehane the genre writer (there are five books with Patrick Kenzie as the hero) more than he should. He also has some way to go before he becomes a good director of action.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Ben Affleck is smart about setting the scene -- he's even better at it than Clint Eastwood was in another Lehane adaptation, "Mystic River." But he's less adept at defining individual personalities, at making us care about the characters who deserve our sympathy -- or, maybe more important, the ones who don't.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Storytelling problems surface toward the overwrought climax, but the worst problem is the unrelenting grimness. It's hard to like a movie that leaves you with no hope.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.3 (out of 10) based on 91 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
[Anonymous] gave it an8:
A great movie. Great characters. Great story. Easily a 10, right? No. The ending of this movie really didn't do it for me and it was a total waste of Morgan Freeman. Other than that, great.
Marla C. gave it a7:
I thought this was interesting. lots of twists and turns. i missed some of the dialogue with the heavy punk and Boston accents. rent it definitely!
Dallin P gave it a10:
This movie has great characters, great plot twists, and many other features that make it resemble a literary classic more than a movie. It's really no surprise to find it was adapted from a book. It left me and everyone who watched it with me discussing for almost an hour, and few movies are able to accomplish that.
Lisa Z gave it a7:
Ending is hard to believe. It's just totally not believable that Morgan Freeman's character would do that. Also, I don't understand how Freeman could possibly have expected to get away with what he did. Wouldn't someone at some point ask him where the little girl came from? Wouldn't he have to get her documented somehow? It doesn't make sense. Still, the movie scores extra points for including one scene with Omar. His healing presence steals the show!
Terri F. gave it a9:
While I hate the way the main character resolved the movie's conflict, I love the movie. I think that is suppose to be the whole point. THerefore, I say kudos to Ben Affleck.
Michelle C gave it a3:
This movie is pretty bad. It was slow, drawn out had too many twists that were not really twists and it was just plain boring. The only good part (which earned it a 3) was the end where it forced you to think about your own moral compass and which way it would have pointed you. It also shows the nature of people thinking they know what's best for other people. I like movies that have a point but I didn't like having to suffer through this movie only to see the point in the last 5 minutes.
Robspi S. gave it a1:
Major flaw-if Affleck's character was so morally righteous to expose Freeman and his associates, why does he hide the fact he murdered a man by shooting him in the back of the head?
