Gone Baby Gone

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.

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.

USA Today Claudia Puig

There is a compelling ethical question raised skillfully that will haunt viewers. The poignant conclusion probably will incite debate.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Gone Baby Gone is full of dark secrets, and how they unravel will keep you glued.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The result is a superior police procedural, and something more -- a study in devious human nature.

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.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Gone Baby Gone would be an accomplishment with anyone at the helm; from a first-timer, it's a revelation.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

It's a fine debut, far more grounded, plausible and engrossing than most Hollywood thrillers.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A story so good that maybe anybody could have turned out something decent.

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.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Casey's big brother has made a tough, taut mystery.

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.

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.

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.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

The movie is taut, fast, achingly authentic and terribly melancholy.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.