BLU-RAY REVIEW

Gone Baby Gone

Featured In Issue 130, April 2008

Picture3.5
SoundNR
WSR Score3.5
Basic Information on new release titles is posted as soon as titles are announced. Once reviewed, additional data is added to the database.
(Studio/Distributor):
Miramax Home Entertainment
(Catalog Number):
53658
(MPAA Rating):
R
(Rating Reason):
For violence, drug content and pervasive language
(Retail Price):
$34.99
(Disc Type):
Single Side, Dual Layer (BD-50)
(Widescreen Edition):
Yes
(Full Screen Edition):
No
(Running Time In Minutes):
114
(Color Type):
Color
(Chaptered/Scene Access):
Yes
(Closed Captioned):
Yes
(Regional Coding):
A
(Theatrical Year):
2007
(Theatrical Release):
Yes
(Direct-To-Video Release):
No
(Disc Release Date):
02/12/08
(THX® Digitally Mastered):
No
(Director):
Ben Affleck
(Screenplay/Written By):
(Story):
(Music):
(Director Of Photography):
(Production Designer):
(Visual Effects):
(Costume Designer):
(Editor):
(Supervising Sound Editors):
(Re-Recording Mixers):
(Executive Producers):
(Co-Producers):
(Producers):
(Academy Awards):
(Principal Photography):
(Theatrical Aspect Ratio):
(Measured Disc Aspect Ratio):
(Disc Soundtrack):
Dolby Digital+ 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1, PCM 24/48 5.1
(Theatrical Sound):
(Theatrical Re-Issue Soundtrack):
(DTS Bit Rate):
(Dolby Digital Bit Rate):
(Additional Languages):
(French Language):
(Spanish Language):
(Chinese Language):
(Subtitles):
(Cantonese Language):
(Mandarin Language):
(Japanese Language):
(Italian Language):
(German Language):
(Portuguese Language):

Four-year-old Amanda McCreary (Madeline O'Brien) is Gone Baby Gone when she is abducted from Dorchester, a working-class neighborhood in Boston. Private Detectives Patrick Kenzie (Affleck) and Angie Gennaro (Monaghan) are hired by the missing girl's aunt to investigate her disappearance, and while doing so, begin to unlock a disturbing tangle of secrets that surround the girl's abduction. Realizing that everyone involved has undisclosed motives to find the missing girl, Kenzie and Gennaro risk everything to solve the case. Based on the novel by Dennis Lehane. (Stacey Pendry)

Special features include the featurettes Going Home: Behind The Scenes With Ben Affleck (seven minutes) and Capturing Authenticity: Casting Gone Baby Gone (nine minutes), six deleted/alternate scenes available with commentary by Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard, feature audio commentary with the writers and director, and up-front previews.

The anamorphically enhanced 1.82:1 DVD shows good color balance, with bold, bright hues and natural-looking fleshtones. Black levels are relatively solid, but good shadow delineation helps create a more realistically dimensional-looking image. Details are fairly well resolved, but there are many instances when the image can look overly soft. Film grain is fine, but it is pervasive enough to be a slight distraction in flat color fields. Pixel breakup can be somewhat of a distraction at times and edge enhancement, while minor, can be noticed on longer shots. The H.264 AVC-encoded Blu-ray Disc shows decent resolution, although not great, but colors are natural looking with nicely balanced contrast. The fine film grain is still pervasive. Black levels are deep and consistent. (Danny Richelieu)

The Dolby® Digital 5.1-channel soundtrack heavily favors the center channel, with the corner full-range channels generally only used for music and low-level atmospheric effects. Dialogue can sound boomy, with excessive resonance in the lower reaches of its range, making men's voices difficult to understand at times. Music is mixed fairly well, but the front stage generally sounds narrow. Pans across each stereo loudspeaker pair are believably well mixed, helping create a more realistic soundfield. Occasional distortion can be heard, but fidelity is fairly good with music and effects. The Blu-ray Disc's uncompressed linear PCM 7.1-channel encoding shows good fidelity with fairly impressive dynamic range. Dialogue sounds more natural, and distortion isn't as audible. (Danny Richelieu)