Christina Reviews *Gone, Baby, Gone*

When Amanda McCready, age 4, is abducted from her bedroom while her drug addict mother is out doing God knows what around town, private investigator Patrick Kenzie and his girlfriend Angie are enlisted by the girl's aunt to find her and, hopefully, bring her home safe and sound.  The only problem is that the police aren't too happy with the extra help and are content on handling the case on their own. 

This gritty, disturbing movie is based off of the fourth book in the Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro series.  The novel was written by Dennis Lehane (of Mystic River fame).  Gone, Baby, Gone was arguably the best book of the series, so I was happy that it was the one Ben Affleck chose to adapt.  It's got a great twist at the end.  The twist in Gone, Baby, Gone actually adds to the story by placing the protagonist in the middle of a moral dilemma that will test him as a person and will possibly destroy his relationship with the woman he loves.

Each of the books in the series are based on a different case, though of course Patrick does carry baggage from one story to the next, so if you're going to read the series, it might be a good idea to read it chronologically.  I didn't.  I read Gone, Baby, Gone first, the second book second, the first book third and the third book fourth, I think.  I still haven't read the fifth book.  I tried to get through the most recent sequel, Moonlight Mile, which is actually a follow up to Gone, Baby, Gone, but I had to give up on it about 70 pages in.

Anyway, I thought that the movie did really well with the source material, and I think that there were parts of the movie that were better than the book.  For example, I think it makes more sense for the cop played by Morgan Freeman to have a murdered daughter as opposed to a daughter who was only missing for a day once when she was a little kid but was found safe not long after she disappeared.  Little things like that only improve the story and make it more emotional. 

Oh, and the acting was fantastic.  Big thumbs up to the woman who played Amanda's mom Helene and to the woman who played Helene's good friend.  Nepotism smiled kindly on Casey Affleck, and he certainly doesn't disappoint, but it's the character actors like Amanda's mom who really earn their paychecks on this one.