Gone Baby Gone: Critic Reviews

In emulating the best -- Eastwood's Mystic River, Scorsese's The Departed -- Affleck shows excellent instincts, not least of which is letting his brother, Casey, hold the center as a young guy not as smaht as he thinks he is.

A satisfyingly tough look into conscience, to those dark places where some men also go astray.

Bravo to Ben Affleck for a smart choice and impressive work.

Welcome home, Ben Affleck -- all is forgiven. Yes, even Gigli.

In his strikingly downbeat directorial debut, Affleck has created something of a blue-moon rarity: an American movie of genuine moral complexity.

Structurally, it's a bit murky, but in every other way Gone Baby Gone marks a triumph for the Affleck brothers.

There's finally much less than meets the eye in what amounts to a linear tour of Greater Boston's criminal minds.

A love-tolerate valentine to the city, it feels more real than the gangster-gorged mean streets of Martin Scorsese's The Departed, and just as tortured as Clint Eastwood's Mystic River.

Affleck's directorial debut [is] a deft look at deep themes.

Casey Affleck has never had a pedestal like the one his brother provides him, and he earns it.

The unconvincing genre conventions in Gone Baby Gone are at odds with its authentic, lived-in atmosphere, but no one can say that Affleck hasn't looked into the depths, and the movie ends on a resonantly ambiguous note.

A superior police procedural, and something more -- a study in devious human nature.

A dour, fairly intriguing mystery based on the fourth book in a series of South Boston-set detective novels by Dennis Lehane.

The picture is so superbly executed in every other respect that Casey seems more quirky than miscast.

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

It's deceptively simple going forward, but devilishly complex in retrospect.

The movie has some nice plot turns, it settles around a painful moral dilemma, and features some fine acting. But it's the sticky sweat of the street and the fine attention to detail that pulls you in and keeps you glued to the screen.

As a procedural, Gone Baby Gone is by the numbers. As a portrait of human folly and resilience, however, it's great drama, and it has some powerful performances to match.

Mr. Affleck is laying the foundation, brick by brick, for a promising new career.

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.

A twisty, morally ambiguous and satisfying neo-noir.

Lehane's superb plotting serves the director well, and Affleck's unblinking view of the world he seems to know, with an emphasis on ugliness, self-perpetuating despair and the wrong sorts of people having children, serves Lehane's story.

As an actor, Affleck has more turkeys on his rA (C)sumA (C) than a Thanksgiving buffet, so what makes him think he can direct? Yet Gone Baby Gone is strong enough to suggest that moviegoers -- and critics -- should give him the benefit of the doubt.

An exceptional picture.

The strength of the film's subject matter and the intelligence and perceptiveness with which it is approached make this not merely an October diversion but a genuine Oscar contender.