"Strange as it might seem, I believe the police when they tell me something."

Ok, before I say anything else about Gone Baby Gone, can we please discuss Casey Affleck for one second? When the hell did he get hot? How did that happen? Wasn't he just Ben's squirrelly kid brother? Yes, he was great in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, but I was not prepared for the affect he would have on me in this movie. He was poised, mature, handsome, intense, and yes, INSANELY hot.

On to the movie. Wow, this was good. Ben Affleck needs to focus more on film making rather than acting if this is the kind of product he can create. We were completely riveted from beginning to end, and in some ways it almost felt like two movies intricately layered together. Just when you think you understand what happened, everything shifts. The first half winds down and it seems like it is going to end fairly unsatisfyingly and then WHAM - a whole different story comes to light. So well done, such great acting from everyone involved. I don't know if it was because he felt comfortable acting for his brother or what, but the younger Affleck really held his own amidst the cast of more established actors and was incredible to watch. Is it coming across that we really, really liked him in this? We really did. Also stunning was Amy Ryan. About halfway through, I was like, "WAIT - is that Holly from the Office???" I think I knew that she was in it but had completely forgotten, and she was virtually unrecognizable and so very hateable. Awesome performance.

The morality issues raised in this movie - is the right thing always the right thing, and is the wrong thing sometimes the right thing if it's done for the right reasons - were handled very well, and there was no clear bias by the film makers as to how they wanted the audience to feel about it. We ended the movie very sad and pensive, painfully agreeing that Patrick did the right thing but also that we're not sure we could have done it. Personally, I want to believe that [spoiler] Patrick stays involved in Amanda's life and acts as some kind of guardian angel for her, protecting her from the screwed up world she was born into [/spoiler] but as Brandon pointed out, that probably wouldn't happen.

This is definitely in the top five of the movies we have watched so far.