This is one of the most poweful, gut-wrenching movies I have ever seen. And I’ve seen a lot of them. It’s just a great fucking film.
It makes you think about “doing the right thing”. But out in the real world. It’s why the expression “situational ethics” was invented. This little girl’s life is now fucked forever because Patrick felt obligated to do the right thing. But it’s not like his point of view is without merit. Philosophically, for example.
Can you imagine the objectivists of the world tackling this convoluted mess by way of proposing a universal knowledge or morality?
And there must be thousands upon thousands of kids struggling to survive in dysfunctional families like this.
Here though you don’t expect the “good guy” to bring the child back to the piece of shit monster that is “raising” her. And he has seen her up close. So there is no doubt regarding just how pathetic her mothering “skills” are. Angie, on the other hand, is a bit more perceptive here. And, in shooting Corwin, Patrick shows his own willingness to do the wrong thing for the right reasons. True: In the best of all possible worlds world we want the law [the rule of law] to prevail. But in the world as it is there will always be crucial judgment calls.
Of course, the cops can fuck with innocent folks too. And the irony here is the relationship [in Patrick’s mind] between Corwin and Amanda. But she pays the price, not him.
Aside: Why did Jack’s wife have to be white? Is the idea of two black folks raising a little white girl going too far? I have to admit that making her white troubled me. I smell racism in there somewhere. However deep down subconsciously it goes.
IMDb
Broadway actress Amy Ryan looked and sounded so convincing as a low class Dorchester mom that a security guard mistook her for a fan on the first day of location filming, and wouldn’t let her on the set. One of the producers finally noticed her on the other side of one of the barricades, and said she should be let through. The incident made Ryan twenty minutes late, but convinced her the Boston accent she’d prepared was realistic.
What an incredible performance. Absolutely amazing.
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gone_Baby_Gone
trailer: youtu.be/O0JXvJHhjus
GONE BABY GONE [2007]
Written and directed by Ben Affleck
[b]Patrick: I always believed it was the things you don’t choose that makes you who you are. Your city, your neighborhood, your family. People here take pride in these things, like it was something they’d accomplished. The bodies around their souls, the cities wrapped around those. I lived on this block my whole life; most of these people have. When your job is to find people who are missing, it helps to know where they started. I find the people who started in the cracks and then fell through. This city can be hard. When I was young, I asked my priest how you could get to heaven and still protect yourself from all the evil in the world. He told me what God said to His children. “You are sheep among wolves. Be wise as serpents, yet innocent as doves.”
…
Patrick [while watching TV]: Fucking cops. This is just unbelievable. The whole force standing outside the house, guarding the sidewalk with their arms crossed. I mean, are the kidnappers coming back?
…
Angie: We have a good life, right?
Patrick: Is that a trick question?
Angie: I don’t wanna find their little kid in a dumpster.
Patrick: Maybe she’s not in a dumpster, babe.
Angie: I don’t wanna find a little kid after they’ve been abused for three days.
Patrick: Hon, nobody does.
…
Lionel [about Helene]: She’s at the Fillmore all the time.
Patrick: She’s at the Fillmore lounge?
Lionel: Yeah, she drinks every day. She’s got the gene, you know? The disease. Our parents had it too.
Patrick: She use drugs?
Lionel: I think she does a little coke.
Patrick: How much is a little?
Lionel: I don’t know. Few times a week, maybe. I mean how much is a lot?
Patrick: Few times a week’s a lot.
Lionel: Then she does a lot.
…
Patrick [seeing Amanda’s bare room] Kidnapped the furniture, too?
…
Jack: A four-year-old child is on the street. It’s 76 hours and counting. And the prospects for where she might be are beginning to look grim, you understand? Half of all the children in these cases are killed, flat out. If we don’t catch the abductor by day one, only about 10% are ever solved. This is day three.
…
Steve: [at a bar] Yeah, listen, I been fucking everywhere putting up posters, man, you know? Every project hallway, all over City Point, everywhere, you know? I mean, it’s a real tragedy. She used to come in here, sit up at the bar and shit. You know, she was like our mascot.
Angie: Helene brought Amanda in here?
Steve: Well, mostly in the afternoons. I mean, it’s not place for a child at night.
Angie: Oh, really?
Steve [missing the irony]: Yeah. Hot tempers, lot of drugs, trust me.
Patrick: So how often Helene come down here?
Steve: Five nights a week. Come on, guys, please. She’s a fucking coke ho, okay? She’s in here fucking doing lines just about every night. Trust me, all right? It’s not a real shocker, so…
Patrick: She’s that bad, huh?
Steve: Huh? Oh, she’s fucking terrible. Listen, remember that night when the kid got kidnapped? You saw her on the news, right? She’s saying, “Oh, I was at my neighbor’s house for a half hour.” Bullshit. She was in here for, like, two hours bumping rails. Oh, yeah.
…
Patrick: Ever sell to Helene?
Bubba: There’s reasons why there ain’t three inches of Plexiglas between us right now. That’s 'cause I don’t fuck with skeezers like Helene.
…
Remy: How well do you know Cheese?
Helene: Who?
Nick: Come on, sweetheart. Cheese. Either you know him or you don’t.
Helene: Oh, sounds familiar.
Remy: No. It don’t “sound familiar”, Helene. He’s a violent sociopathic Haitain criminal named Cheese. Either you know him or you don’t.
…
Beatrice: You took Amanda with you?
Helene: Well, what am I gonna’ do? Leave her in the car, Bea? I don’t got no daycare. It’s really hard bein’ a mother. It’s hard raisin a family, you know? All on my own. But God made you barren, so you wouldn’t fuckin’ know. So I understand, Bea, okay?
Beatrice: You are an abomination.[/b]
Yeah, maybe on a good day.
Angie: You didn’t think it was worth it for your daughter’s sake to tell people what happened? Cheese has your kid. God fucking knows what he’s doing to her.
Helene: What am I gonna do? Call Cheese and be like, “You got my daughter? Cause I just ripped you off, and I’m just checking.”
Angie: Yeah!
Helene: Oh, my God! Oh, I’m gonna call the cops, too, and be like, “You know, just so you know, wanna know I run coke and heroin in case that’s irrelevant.”
Of course only Patrick was witness to this:
[b]Helene [crying]: I know I fucked up. I just want my daughter back. I swear to God, I won’t use no drugs no more. I won’t even go out every night, I’ll be fucking straight. Cross my heart.
…
Cheese: You got my money, you leave that shit in the mailbox on your ass way out, you feel me? Some other motherfuckers let fool rob on them. I don’t play scrimmage. But I don’t fuck with no kids. And if that girl only hope is you, well, I pray for her, because she’s gone, baby. Gone.
…
Patrick: Cheese, if you ever disrespect her again like that, I’m gonna pull your fuckin’ card, okay? So you’re saying you didn’t do it, fine. We’ll take your money, and we’ll be on our way. When it turns out you’re lying, I’m gonna spend every nickel of that money to fuck you up. I’m gonna bribe cops to go after you, I’m gonna pay guys to go after your weak fuckin’ crew, and I’m gonna tell all the guys I know that you’re a C.I. and a rat, and I know a lot of people. And after that, you’re gonna wish you listened to me, ‘cause your shitty pool hall crime syndicate headquarters is gonna get raided, and your doped-up bitches are gonna get sent back to Laos, and this fuckin’ retard right here is gonna be testifying against you for a reduced sentence, while you’re gettin’ cornholed in your cell by a gang of crackers. 'Cause from what I’ve heard, the guys that get sent up Concord for killing kids, life’s a motherfucker.
Cheese [pointing gun at Patrick]: You come 'round here again, and I’m gonna get discourteous on your ass.
…
Patrick [narrating]: I couldn’t stop running it over and over and over in my mind, the vague and distant suspicion that we never understood what happened that night, what our role was. Or maybe it was just that, like the hundreds of other children who disappear each year and never return…Amanda was even more haunting for never being found.
…
Patrick: They say how old that little boy was?
Remy: Seven. Second grade. Should be proud of yourself. Most guys would’ve stayed outside.
Patrick: I don’t know.
Remy: What don’t you know?
Patrick: My priest says shame is God telling you what you did was wrong.
Remy: Fuck Him.
Patrick: Murder’s a sin.
Remy: Depends on who you do it to.
Patrick: That’s not how it works. It is what it is.
…
Remy: I planted evidence on a guy once, back in '95. We were paying $100 an eight-ball to snitches. We got a call from our pal, Ray Likanski. He couldn’t find enough guys to rat out. Anyway, he tells us there’s a guy pumping up in an apartment up in Columbia Point. We go in, me and Nicky. Fifteen years ago, when Nicky went in, it was no joke. So it’s a… it’s a stash house, right? The old lady’s beat to shit, the husband’s mean, cracked out, trying to give us trouble, Nicky lays him down. We’re doing an inventory, but it looks like we messed up because there’s no dope in the house, and I go in the back room. Now, this place was a shithole, mind you? Rats, roaches, all over the place. But the kid’s room, in the back, was spotless. No, I mean, he swept it, mopped it; it was immaculate. The little boy’s sitting on the bed, holding onto his playstation for dear life. There’s no expression on his face, tears streaming down. He wants to tell me he just learned his multiplication tables.
Patrick: Christ.
Remy: I mean, the father’s got him in this crack den, subsisting on twinkies and ass-whippings, and this little boy just wants someone to tell him that he’s doing a good job. You’re worried what’s Catholic? I mean, kids forgive. Kids don’t judge. Kids turn the other cheek. What do they get for it? So I went back out there, I put an ounce of heroin on the living room floor, and I sent the father on a ride, seven to nine.
Patrick: That’s was the right thing?
Remy [yelling]: Fucking A! You gotta take a side. You molest a child, you beat a child, you’re not on my side. If you see me coming, you better run, because I am gonna lay you the fuck down! Easy.
Patrick: Don’t feel easy.
Remy: Is the kid better off without his father? Yeah. But okay, I mean, could be out there right now pumping with a gun in his waistband. It’s a war, man. Are we winning? No.
…
Remy [to Lionel]: Where I come from, you die with your secrets.
…
Lionel [to Patrick]: Last summer, Helene and Dottie took Amanda to the beach. It was a real hot day. Amanda fell asleep. They left her in the car while they go off into the dunes, smoke a doobie with some guys. Two hours. Amanda literally roasted. She was three. Later on, I was holding her, trying to help her get to sleep. My little Amanda, she was so hot. She felt like something just come out of the oven. Like a fucking pot roast. So don’t feel too sorry for my sister. Because she never gave a shit about anyone but herself.
…
Patrick: Does it make you feel better? Telling yourself you did it for the right reasons? That you took her to be saved. From her own mother?
Jack: We’re just trying to give a little girl a life.
Patrick: Wasn’t your life to give. Helene’s her mother. If you thought she was a bad mother, you should’ve gone to Social Services. Short of that, she’s her mother, and that’s where she belongs. Jack: You turn around. You go back to your fucking car, and you wait 30 years. You don’t know what the world is made of yet.
…
Patrick: I’m calling state police in five minutes. They’ll be here in ten.
Jack: Thought you would’ve done that by now. You know why you haven’t? Because you think this might be an irreparable mistake. Because deep inside you, you know it doesn’t matter what the rules say. When the lights go out, and you ask yourself “is she better off here or better off there”, you know the answer. And you always will. You…you could do a right thing here. A good thing. Men live their whole lives without getting this chance. You walk away from it, you may not regret it when you get home. You may not regret it for a year, but when you get to where I am, I promise you, you will. I’ll be dead, you’ll be old. But she…she’ll be dragging around a couple of tattered, damaged children of her own, and you’ll be the one who has to tell them you’re sorry.
Patrick: You know what? Maybe that’ll happen. And if it does, I’ll tell them I’m sorry and I’ll live with it. But what’s never gonna happen and what I’m not gonna do is have to apologize to a grown woman who comes to me and says: “I was kidnapped when I was a little girl, and my aunt hired you to find me. And you did, you found me with some strange family. But you broke your promise and you left me there. Why? Why didn’t you bring me home? Because all the snacks and the outfits and the family trips don’t matter. They stole me. It wasn’t my family and you knew about it and you knew better and you did nothing”. And maybe that grown woman will forgive me, but I’ll never forgive myself.
Jack: I did what I did for the sake of the child. All right. For me, too. But now, I’m asking you for the sake of the child. I’m begging you. You think about it.
…
Angie: She’s happy.
Patrick: What?
Angie: She’s happy here. I saw her.
Patrick: Angie, don’t do this.
Angie: If you call the police, they will send her back.
Patrick: I’m not sending her anywhere. Helene is her mother.
Angie: She’s better off here.
Patrick: Why? Because he’s got money, and he makes her sandwiches?
Angie: Because he loves her.
Patrick: Helene loves her, too.
Angie: Helene doesn’t treat her that way.
Patrick: Well, maybe she’ll change.
Angie: She won’t change. People don’t change. Helene is arsenic.
…
Patrick: Angie, I know that this is hard. Look at me, I know it’s hard. But I need you to stand by me. I need you to say, "We’re gonna make the right decision, “and we’re gonna make everything okay.”
Angie: Everything will be okay. Because we’re gonna leave her here, and every now and then we’re gonna talk about her. And where she is, and about what grade she’s in. And that’ll be okay, because we’re gonna know what school she’s in, and we’re gonna know she’s happy, and she’s got birthday parties, and she smiles every day, and she has sleepovers.
Patrick: Baby, I’m sorry. But you can’t ask me to do something that I can’t do.
Angie: And you can’t ask me to live with it. Patrick, for me. Please? I will hate you for doing this, and I don’t want to.
…
Patrick [to Angie as she leaves him]: You wanna talk for a minute?
Angie: There’s nothing to say.
…
Helene: Sorry for being rude, I gotta be out of here in, like, two minutes. Think he’ll like me?
Patrick: Who?
Helene: My date. He seen me on my American Victim. He wrote me letters, I was like, “Whatever.” But then he seen my Meredith Vieira, he drove down here from Providence. I’m like, “That’s romantic.” Right?
Patrick: How’s Bea?
Helene: Fuck Bea. I banned her from the apartment.
…
Patrick: What about Amanda?
Helene: What about Amanda?
Patrick: Who’s gonna watch her?
Helene: Dottie.
Patrick: Yeah, does Dottie know that?
Helene: She will in five minutes.
Patrick [barely audible]: Great.
Helene: Fuck, I’m gonna be late, too. Unless you don’t mind sitting for her.
Patrick: Yeah, sure.
Helene: For real?
Patrick: Yeah, that’s fine.
Patrick: She likes you.
[she leaves barely glancing at Amanda]
Helene: Bye, sweetheart. You’re a godsend, Patrick. Bye.[/b]
Then and there Patrick begins to realize what a terrible fucking mistake he has made. How many lives he fucked up – how many folks he got killed – in order to do the Right Thing.
]