http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452623/http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452623/
Gone Baby Gone (2007)
Film bosses have pulled the release of a Ben Affleck film about the disappearance of a four-year-old girl because of similarities to the Madeleine McCann case.
Gone Baby Gone was meant to arrive in UK cinemas on December 28, but has now been postponed indefinitely by its distributor, Buena Vista International. A gala screening of the movie at next month's London Film Festival, which Affleck, 35, was meant to attend, has been cancelled.
Gone Baby Gone centres on two private detectives assisting the investigation into the missing child and stars Oscar winner Morgan Freeman and Affleck's brother Casey.
Film companies said the movie was filmed last year, before Madeleine went missing in Portugal.
Buena Vista and its subsidiary Miramax released a statement, saying: "Gone Baby Gone is based on the 1998 fictional book of the same name by award-winning author Dennis Lehane and was filmed in the US during 2006.
"Miramax Films and BVI UK are sensitive to the depth of feeling surrounding the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. We have been closely following the case and have decided to delay the release of the film in the UK."
The actress playing the role, Madeline O'Brien, not only shares her first name with Madeleine McCann, but is said to bear a resemblance to her.
At the Deauville Film Festival in France earlier this month, Affleck said he was prepared to take steps to delay the release of Gone Baby Gone.
"We are acutely aware of the situation," he said at the time.
"We have a greater concern for that than the release of our film, which is just a commercial matter, whereas this is a matter of life and death. It is only when someone said there was this case that was very similar to my film that we looked it up. We don't want to release the movie if it is going to touch a nerve or inflame anybody's sensitivities."
Ok so they decided to make a film, but that is not the horrifing part this is
Madeline O'Brien
Madeleine McCann
Scarey biscuits, the plot thickins, and i'm sorry to say but i believe that the parents of young Madeleine McCann MUST be held responsibile
MasterSamWise
And strange or not the film has another M M connection
Every once in a while, amid the dross that reviewers have to sit through, comes a movie that hits like a sucker punch to the gut and haunts you long after you've left the theater. Such is the case with Gone Baby Gone.
Based on the book by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River), Gone Baby Gone marks the directorial debut of Ben Affleck, who also penned the screenplay in tandem with Aaron Stockard, and easily puts him at the front of the line for Oscar contention.
Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan star as a pair of private investigators based in the rough working class Dorchester district of Boston. The two are hired by the family of a missing four-year-old girl to assist the police investigation because of their street connections and ability to get people to talk who otherwise would never open up to a cop. As they navigate through the neighborhood's seamy underbelly of pimps, drug dealers and crack whores they uncover an ever-expanding mystery that takes on the added dimension of provoking the question of just what is right and what is wrong, firmly pitting both story and viewer in a struggle between situational ethics and moral absolutes.
Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris round out an impressive cast, but it's the younger Affleck who takes this movie on his back and runs with it, easily surpassing his director brother in terms of acting breadth and range. This is no slight to Ben, however. It's been a long time since I was this impressed with a directorial debut, and even longer since I was given cause to reflect upon the values that we hold dear as individuals and a society, and the moral foundations upon which they are based. Gone Baby Gone manages both, and wraps it up in a hard-hitting detective story that serves as much to satisfy the baser urges of bar fights and gun play, as it does tackling bigger issues.
It's also one of those rare movies in which it can easily be said that the less you know about the story going in, the richer the experience. There's no clear twist ending to give away, but rather a layered story that unfolds like a Russian stacking doll with a moral dilemma at its core.
One thing I do feel comfortable revealing, however, is that this movie comes about as close as any can to being a bonafide lock come Academy Award time. Congrats Ben, you may well have redeemed yourself from your J-Lo/Gigli reputation at last.
Nightmare