Gone Baby Gone Critique, Essay Example

“Gone Baby Gone” is Ben Affleck’s directorial debut film. The film is a crime thriller that touches on themes of morality deeply and it utilizes many social issues as they relate to a small working class town in Boston. Understanding the dynamics of family structure within a working class community, what it means to be just, or the effects urban density can have on a culture are all prevailing aspects of the film.

1) Urban neighborhood with limited mobility

The film is set in a small Boston town.

Many of the people living in the town are impoverished and tied down to their household due to limited resources, so they have limited means of escaping. There is also a sense that very few people have ever left this town. Limited mobility being a factor, it requires that all members of the town take advantage of their local resources. This can be seen in how Beatrice contacts Patrick to be her private detective because she knows.

2) Urban neighborhood with tight social network

The neighborhood is a low income area where most of the citizens have grown up knowing one another.  Crime is a part of the town, but the criminals are also individuals who have grown up with most of the other

3) Culture in the Northeastern Region in America

Being that “Gone Baby Gone” was Ben Affleck’s directorial debut, and he traces his origin back  to the city of Boston, the distinctive culture of the North Eastern region comes out on screen. All of the Boston accents are very thick, and there are many scenes where Patrick Kenzie

4) Family structure

Family structure in this small Boston town, specifically as it relates to the main characters in the plot. The plot of the story centers around Helene McCready and the loss of her young four year-old girl who disappears and the story gains massive media attention.  The exposure and pressure to locate the girl before it’s too late, results a When Patrick asks Helene “Brother or not, he took my kid. [Forget] Lionel. She could have been hurt (“Gone Baby Gone”).” Here Helene is quick to turn her back on her brother, who raised her child while she was partying.  The little girl’s aunt Beatrice is also a good representation of family, in that she looks down on Helene as a mother, but is still she is willing to do whatever it takes

5) Urban density and Crime, pedestrian oriented urban development

Many of the characters take pride in the community and they seek to improve its quality in the form of justice. This a moral crime thriller, but the central figure in the film more so than Patrick, is the city of Boston. Many of the homes in the town are constructed in such a way that they are stacked on top of one another; and due to increased population. Very similar to urban density crime is an issue in the film in that the police officers of the book have been hardened by past failure. The film is a crime thriller, so the driving factor of the plot is crime, initially the kidnapping of a little girl and then the kidnapping and murder of a little boy.

6) Importance of social contact and personal communication

There is a major significance placed on social contact and personal communication as interaction virtually never happens by phone, or through the internet. Communication is depicted live in virtually every scene. The emphasis on the value human interaction can be seen not only in the fact that Beatrice knew she needed to hire a private detective with ties to the Boston underground community, but in the simple detail that the one-time communication through a phone call is mentioned, it centers on a complex scheme to trick deceive Patrick. He is told that there is a phone transcript of a police conversation. Throughout the film he is witty and a step ahead of most other characters, but the phone communication creates a laps in his judgment, because it’s not face to face.

7) Morality

The fact that the girl’s mother, Helene McCready is depicted as a drug addict and an irresponsible mother is the core concept from which all moral dilemma of the film originates. At point throughout the film, Patrick kills a confirmed child molester and murderer and he feels conflicted about the issue. Right after killing that “Patrick: My priest says shame is God telling you what you did was wrong. The other Detective: [Forget] him. Patrick: Murder’s a sin. Other Detective: Depends on who you do it to. Patrick: That’s not how it works. It is what it is(“Gone Baby Gone”).” Here it’s clear that Patrick is at moral cross roads. When he starts to question his own judgment on this, he ultimately becomes obsessed with being moral.  After killing a child molester, and overcoming severe guilt for the act, Patrick seems to go on a moral crusade where he seeks out the slightest bit criminal activity and lays down his on standard of justice. The police officers in the film appeare to be moral, while Patrick is being legal minded and just. This is ironic considering he is a detective for hire, while the others are professionals.