Literature / Gone Baby Gone

"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's only hope is you, well, I pray for her, because she's gone, baby. Gone."

— Cheese

Gone Baby Gone is a 1998 Kenzie and Gennaro series novel by Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River and The Given Day.

In Boston, private investigators and lovers Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro are called to investigate the disappearance of 4-year-old Amanda McCready. With the aid of police Capt. Jack Doyle, father of a murdered daughter himself, the two set out on the case they initially never wanted. As they further investigate, secrets are dug up that threaten all involved.

Brought to the screen in 2007 by Ben Affleck in his directorial debut, with Casey Affleck as Kenzie, Michelle Monaghan as Gennaro, and Morgan Freeman as Doyle. The supporting cast includes Ed Harris, John Ashton, Amy Ryan, Amy Madigan, and Titus Welliver.

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The book and movie feature examples of:

• Abusive Parents: It quickly becomes obvious that Helene is a horribly neglectful mother. It's why Lionel helped Broussard take her in the first place.
• Adaptation Distillation:
  • Affleck does a very good job of condensing and streamlining a very complex novel.
  • Since the movie was adapted as a stand-alone, all Continuity Nods to the earlier books in the series were cut, such as Patrick frequently thinking about his confrontation with Gerry Glynn and the death of Phil from Darkness, Take My Hand or Doyle threatening to open up an investigation into Patrick and Angie's murder of Marion Socia in A Drink Before The War.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: In the book, Patrick has a scar across his lower face given to him by the Big Bad of Darkness, Take My Hand and has grown a beard to cover it up. In the movie, he has no such scar and is clean-shaven, preserving Casey Affleck's boyish good lucks.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • Bubba. While he's certainly no pushover, he's little more than a tough-talking thug in the movie—a far-cry from the musclebound ex-Marine/gun nut in the books.
  • Angie is noted for her skill with guns in the books, but she never gets a chance to show it off in the movie.
• Adaptation Name Change:
  • In the film version, Remy Broussard becomes Remy Bressant.
  • The Scandinavian-American criminal Sven "Cheese" Olamon becomes the Haitian-American criminal Cheese Jean-Baptiste.
• Adapted Out: As part of the overall Adaptation Distillation, some ancillary characters from the novel were cut in the film, such as Devin's partner Oscar Lee, Cheese's lieutenant "Pharaoh" Guttierez, and Justice Department Agent Neal Ryerson who in the novel is the one that cues Patrick and Angie Into Lionel being involved in Amanda's abduction.
• Always Save the Girl: Even at the expense of his actual love interest. And maybe even the girl's own well-being.
• Appropriated Appellation: In the novel, Cheese is a white and blond Scandinavian who got the name from kids making fun of his pasty white appearance. They later regretted tormenting him. In the movie, he's played by the black Edi Gathegi and the nickname goes unexplained.
• As the Good Book Says...: While musing on how it can be possible to survive in a harsh world without sacrificing one's soul and sanity, Kenzie quotes Matthew 10:16 - "Behold, I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and gentle as doves."
• Bald of Evil: Corwin Earle.
• Beauty Inversion: Amy Ryan is miles away from her usual attractive appearance as the trashy, drug-addicted Helene McCready.
• Berserk Button: Remy absolutely despises people who harm children. Cheese does not take kindly to being viewed as among their ranks either.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: Most of the characters, both heroes and villains, are some shade of gray. Then there's Corwin Earle and Roberta Trett.
• Both Sides Have a Point: Jack Doyle is quite right that Helene is a horribly unfit mother who shows no signs of ever-changing, and that Amanda is better off under his care. Patrick is also right that whatever his intentions (or Helene's flaws) may be, he still kidnapped her, and it's not up to him to make such decisions about Amanda's well-being.
• Brawn Hilda: Roberta Trett, who in the book is described as barely being recognizable as female. Hilariously, the actress who played her in the film is actually a teacher who is beloved by her students.
• Chekhov's Gunman: In the novel, the woman and her son who appear in the very first chapter look like they're completely unrelated to the main plot. It turns out they're actually Brossard's wife, who was a former prostitute and unable to have children of her own or adopt due to her record, and their son, who they obtained in the same way Amanda was "rescued", and the two of them fled the area after Brossard's death
• Chickification: Poor Angie gets hit hard with this. For example, in the book she puts a bullet into Remy's lung that kills him. In the movie, it's a random bartender who does the deed.
• Children Are Innocent: Remy Bressant and Jack Doyle certainly think so. Perhaps they are a little too attached to the idea.
• Cluster F-Bomb: There's a lot of foul language in this film. It is set in South Boston, after all.
• Coincidental Broadcast: The scene with Angie at the hospital after her cliff jump features TV news on the missing child case.
• The Coroner Doth Protest Too Much: In the novel, Cheese is heavily implied to have been murdered, but the death is reported as an accident. In the movie, Cheese is present at the gorge and gets shot by Bressant, so it's much more obvious that this was indeed a setup.
• The CSI Effect: Lampshaded by Devin in-universe (he specifically mentions the show), who uses it to defend Remy planting evidence on a guy he knew was guilty.
• Doesn't Know Their Own Child: Played for Drama in the final scene. When Amanda is abducted, she makes a televised plea for her to be returned, mentioning that she was taken along with her favorite doll Mirabelle. When Patrick visits the family at the end and asks Amanda about Mirabelle, she says the doll's name is actually Annabelle, revealing Helene didn't even know the name of her daughter's toy, causing Patrick to wonder if he made the right decision to return her after all.
• Downer Ending: The story doesn't end well for anyone, except the possibly least sympathetic character. Remy Bressant and Nick Poole are dead and Lionel and Jack Doyle are in jail. Despite being revealed as being behind the plot to abduct Amanda, all four spent the movie as sympathetic characters and their motivations were at least understandable. Bea is completely estranged from Helene and probably will never be able to see her niece. Angie Gennaro has left Patrick Kenzie because of the decision he makes at the end of the movie. And Patrick has to live with the death of Corwin Earle on his conscience and the realization that he made the wrong choice in returning Amanda to her mother. The only person who gets a happy ending is Helene who is reunited with her daughter who she thought was dead. But instead of changing her ways as she promised and Patrick had hoped, she goes right back to being completely self-centered and a terrible, irresponsible mother.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Many of Patrick's friends are drug dealers and criminals but all are appalled by anyone who would harm a child. Cheese stands out as he is a violent psychopath who responds to such accusations poorly. Some of them, such as Stevie, even try to help by putting up posters and Bubba leads cops to where a child murderer is hiding.
• Friend in the Black Market: Bubba. It's not mentioned in the movie, but his apartment is mined against trespassers. By which we mean actual, live artillery mines.
• Good Girls Avoid Abortion: An odd inversion of sorts. It's mentioned that before Amanda, Helene had been pregnant before but had always had abortions, but for some reason with Amanda she decided to keep her. However, it's not presented as being a good choice for either mother or daughter. At the end of the movie, she is proven to be an awful mother for Amanda.
• Good is Not Nice: Good luck trying to find a moment in the movie where Kenzie himself is anything but a mean person.
• He Who Fights Monsters / Knight Templar: Remy Bressant/Broussard.
• Hollywood New England: Mostly averted, since both Dennis Lehane and the Affleck brothers grew up in working-class parts of Boston and are quite familiar with the city and the way people there talk.
• Ignored Epiphany: It seems at first like the ordeal has convinced Helene to be a better mother to Amanda but she reverts to her old ways at the end anyway.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: When Lionel is finally ready to reveal to Patrick that he was in on Amanda's kidnapping, he orders three whisky shots and a beer before spilling. Especially notable as he had earlier said he was once an alcoholic who had managed to stay sober for twenty-three years.
• Jerkass: Helene. Good god, Helene. She is a selfish, immature, neglectful, racist, and all-around horrible mother and a terrible person in general.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Despite her desperation to get Amanda back and seeming determination to be a better mother, the ending shows Helene is still just as selfish and neglectful as ever and shows no signs of ever changing.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: While the Child Abduction Unit clearly had good intentions, they crossed the point of no return as soon as they started going outside the law and murdering people who got in the way.
• Lampshade Hanging: On the fact that Casey Affleck looks much younger than his actual age.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: In the book, several plot elements from a previous novel, Darkness, Take My Hand are discussed, such as the identity of the killer and the fate of Angela's husband, Phil, who was murdered.
  • The sequel, Moonlight Mile, by virtue of being a sequel, is also one of these, since the outcome is spoiled on the back cover. Lehane himself says that "the cat's out of the bag" in an interview.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Beatrice had no idea what Lionel had arranged with Bressant, which is why Lionel tries to discourage her from continuing to look for Amanda.
• Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: Amanda's abduction was staged by Capt. Doyle and a few others to get her to a proper home.
• Missing Child: Two Boston area detectives investigate the kidnapping of a 4-year-old girl.
• Missing White Woman Syndrome: The girl's abduction receives more attention than the abduction and rape and murder of a Hispanic boy around the same time. Averted when Patrick finds out about it and goes apeshit on the perpetrator.
  • Also alluded to by Kenzie, who remarks that in the same neighborhood as the one from which Amanda was abducted, half a dozen Cape Verdeans were gunned down on the street and nobody cared in the least.
• My Biological Clock Is Ticking: In the book, Angela asks Patrick if he's ever thought about them having children. At the end of the book they break up, seemingly dashing this, but in a later novel, they're back together and do have a child.
• Mythology Gag: The "Make me a martini!" scene wasn't in the novel. It's actually a reference to one of Patrick's quotes in Sacred, the third book in the Kenzie and Gennaro Series.
  James Bond was cool, sure, but he never had to walk into Patty's Pantry. Hell, just try and order a vodka martini in this neighborhood. Shaken or stirred, your ass was going out a window.
• Never Found the Body: The little girl was declared dead, although her body was never found.
• Not Quite the Right Thing: They save the girl and bring her back to her mother. Good. The mother is a neglectful drug addict who can't even remember her daughter's doll's name. That's not good. The whole point of the story is that the "right thing" and the "wrong thing" aren't always so clear-cut. Think about Patrick's state of mind after he kills Corwin Earle, contrasted with how everybody else views the incident: he's wracked with guilt, ashamed at his loss of control and possibly sees himself as a murderer, whereas his colleagues and even his girlfriend think it was justice well-deserved. This no doubt affects his choice at the end of the movie, that being: let the little girl have a better quality of life, allowing several murders and a kidnapping to go unpunished (although none of the murder victims were exactly innocents)? Or, do the LAWFULLY right thing, have the murderers and kidnappers arrested and the child returned to her mother - a mother who is a neglectful addict, and who no longer has her relatives watching over her shoulder to make sure she doesn't screw up? Amanda's situation is undoubtedly worse at the end of the film than it was at the start, but Patrick obeyed the law, so he did the right thing, didn't he? Didn't he? The story leaves the audience to work that one out for themselves.
  • Summed up by Lehane himself when discussing the sequel, Moonlight Mile:
    He's done the right thing, but he was wrong. He's done the wrong thing, but he was right.
  • The ending also leaves it open that the mother might change her ways a little due to the experience. Does she deserve that second chance? In the sequel, Amanda herself comes down firmly on the side of "No."
• Off the Wagon: Lionel is a recovered alcoholic who stopped drinking years ago. When he is finally ready to reveal to Patrick that he was in on Amanda's kidnapping, he orders three whisky shots and a beer before spilling.
• Papa Wolf: The entire Child Abduction unit in the police, especially Captain Doyle, who lost his daughter. Also deconstructed once it's revealed that they were the ones who took Amanda.
• Parental Neglect: Helene to Amanda to a horrifying degree. Lionel recounts a story where Helene once left her in the car on a sweltering summer's day so she could go and get high and didn't seem to care that Amanda could have very easily died of heat stroke. She hasn't gotten any better by the finale.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Kenzie's shooting of Earle. See Vigilante Execution.
• Private Detective: Kenzie and Gennaro.
• Psycho for Hire: In the vein of Hawk, Bubba is, among other things, an arms dealer, drug dealer and generally a thug, but he's friends with Patrick and helps him out too.
• Rabid Cop: Both Sgt. Remy and Det. Nick were the most amoral cops in the film. Remy in particular, was not averse to planting evidence to nail a suspect. Or even to extrajudicial execution for some criminals.
• Race Lift:
  • Capt. Jack Doyle was originally a white Irishman. In the film, he's Morgan Freeman. Sound familiar?
  • Cheese and Devin were originally white guys as well. The commentary reveals that this wasn't an intentional race lift, since they allowed anyone to read for the part and picked the actors based on who did it best.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Lionel sports a fine 'stache in the film because Titus Welliver had just been shooting Deadwood, though they trimmed it slightly for the movie.
• Social Services Does Not Exist: It's less that they don't and more that they are simply so overworked and underfunded that they may as well not. Sadly very much truth in television and one borne from experience as Lehane used to work with abused kids.
• Southies: Most of the cast, but Amy Ryan's character in particular fits the most unflattering version of the stereotype.
• Stress Vomit: He's technically not a police officer so he doesn't count as a Vomiting Cop, but Kenzie has this reaction when he discovers the body of the boy Corwin Earle has murdered. Also counts as a Vomit Indiscretion Shot.
• Title Drop: Courtesy of Cheese.
• Two Shots from Behind the Bar: When Remy attempts to fake a robbery, the minute his attention is turned to Patrick and Lionel, the bartender shoots him. He dies from his wounds.
• Vigilante Execution: Deconstructed. When Kenzie discovers that Earle has molested and killed the missing boy, he shoots him in cold blood, and though other characters express approval of this act, he still feels guilt for it.
• Villain Has a Point: For all the terrible stuff they do, Jack Doyle, Remy, Nick and Lionel were all absolutely correct that Helene is a horribly neglectful mother and a terrible, selfish person who is unlikely to ever change and that Amanda is better off in a more loving and stable environment.
• Was It Really Worth It?: What Kenzie seems to be thinking in the final moments of the film when he realizes that Amanda may have been better off with her "foster" parents.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Jack Doyle, Remy, and Nick were thinking of Amanda's best interests and knew all too well how badly children like her can fall through the cracks, but began Jumping Off the Slippery Slope when their scheme escalated to kidnapping and eventually murder.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Cheese may be a ruthless drug dealer who has no problem with brutally murdering people but is insulted if someone accuses him of messing with kids. And if you tell him twice, he'll "get discourteous on you".

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