A Cinematographic Case Study in Ethical Theory: Review of Gone Baby Gone

by David C. Cramer, MDiv, MA

	Printer-Friendly Version Send Page To a Friend
	David C. Cramer, is Editorial Assistant for Ethics and Medicine and currently is finishing MDiv and MA (Philosophy of Religion) degrees at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois, USA.
	Post Date: May 16, 2008

John Dewey once wrote concerning the ethics of his day that “…we oscillate between a theory that, in order to save the objectivity of judgments and values, isolates them from experience and nature, and a theory that, in order to save their concrete and human significance, reduces them to mere statements about our own feelings.”¹

Gone Baby Gone explores the all-too-real-life implications of this ethical oscillation, offering a graphic modern-day case study on the clash between absolute moral values and consequentialist judgments. In this adaptation of the novel by Dennis Lehane (author of another provocative Boston-based novel adapted into a blockbuster movie—Mystic River), Detective Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and his girlfriend / partner, Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan), take on their first child abduction case at the request of the abducted girl’s aunt and uncle. As a devout Catholic growing up in Dorchester, Massachusetts, the same tough Boston neighborhood where the abduction occurred, Kenzie has learned firsthand what Jesus meant when he exhorted his disciples, “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves”²—a motto Kenzie adopts as his own. However, when a young girl’s life is on the line, Kenzie’s gospel motto will be tested like never before. 

Unlike Kenzie, who adheres to absolute moral principles based on divine revelation, two others on the case, veteran detective Remy Bressant (Ed Harris) and Boston police chief Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman), adhere to a very human—and seemingly more humane—guiding moral criterion: do whatever will work out best for the abducted girl. Doyle, whose own child was murdered years before, has vowed to do whatever it takes to see that what happened to his child does not happen to another’s on his watch. Likewise, Bressant confesses to Kenzie that he loves children and would do absolutely anything to remove them from harm’s way. But when Kenzie’s decision to do the right thing clashes with the goal of doing what seems most beneficial to the abducted girl, even Monaghan, Kenzie’s girlfriend, cannot accept the consequences of his decision, making his ethical dilemma all the more personally difficult.
Gone Baby Gone thus offers an ethical case study in a way that one rarely finds at the box office these days. One is constantly torn between an appeal for “doing the right thing” and an appeal for “showing compassion.” This movie does not provide easy answers, but rather forces the viewer to choose between two ethical paradigms— absolutist and consequentialist—and to witness the ramifications of that decision. Each paradigm has profound implications for the way the investigation is carried out and thus for the well-being of the child. And rather than offering a clear-cut resolution, where everything in the end is worked out for the best, this is one of those rare Hollywood thrillers that leaves the responsibility for passing judgment on the viewers themselves. And in so doing, you just might find yourself, like Kenzie, questioning some of your most deeply held moral beliefs.³ CBHD

References