Ben Affleck directs? Sounds scary at first, but “Gone Baby Gone” is a fantastic movie with an uncomprosing and grim feel story to the very end! After the disappearance of a small girl, Casey Affleck and his partner Michelle Monaghan, both PIs that are speciallized in missing people, are asked by the aunt-in-law to help find her. The police captain, Morgan Freeman, teams them up with two experienced cops played by John Ashton and a brilliant Ed Harris. Investigating together in Boston’s poor neighborhoods, they quickly find out that the missing girl might have actually been abducted, with drugs and stolen money being the key reasons… Sure enough, things turn out not to be what they seem at first or at second, and after some very well placed surprises and twists, the movie concludes quite low-key and with a bitter taste.

What I found most intriguing at the end was that after our “heros” all tried to do the right thing, what they thought was the best and most ethical, they all pay the price in a real world, where the right thing to do isn’t necessarily the best. None of the good guys choices is too outrageous, making their motivations accessible to the viewer throughout the whole film, thus underlining the moral ambiguity at the end. All in all I would say that this is a very interesting movie and a must!

Well, this is going to be a short post. There isn’t really much to say about this movie. The (main) story is pretty much straight forward: After a CIA operative is unintentionally killed during a suicide bombing, an Egyptian-American is taken and sent to one of the many secret interrogation cells the CIA has in cooperation wioth local agencies. Allegedly, he has received phone calls by the very terrorist whose organization claimed responsibility for the bombing earlier. To make the whole thing spicier it turns out that the target of that bombing is the very same Egyptian police officer that conducts the interrogation…

Now, the setup is good and could have led to a very important movie about the US’ decent into the lowlands of terror and torture. Instead, the plot above that I would consider to be the central story of this movie is told in paralled to two more (sub)plots: There is for one the obviously super pregnant wife of the abductee that is starting her very own investigation efforts without achivieng anything except triggering the birth of her child; and secondly, the daughter of our police officer has fled from home and is mingling with a boy that has a secret agenda… While trying to balance those three threads into one narration, the movie looses its main objective and message. Rather, the whole mix looks and feels like a not so succesful copy of 21 grams or Babel: Different characters, all connected with each other through a violent event. But here, one will not find Iñárritu’s artful links between his protagonists: the chracters that are linked just meet or know each other. Period.

After two hours or so, the movie left no memorable moment, no lasting impression with me…