8 "Great" Movies You Actually Only Remember For The Plot Twist
3. Gone Baby Gone (2007)
What People Remember About The Movie: "Uh... they drove out to that house and Morgan Freeman had the girl and he was bad?"
Ask anybody whether they think Gone Baby Gone is a good film and their answer is likely to be: "Yes, of course it is." Ask them to outline the plot and the only thing they'll probably be able to tell you is: "Morgan Freeman was the bad guy all along!"
Gone Baby Gone has a reputation for being a great thriller, and in the moment - just like the Dennis Lehane novel it's based upon - it's certainly a compulsive and entertaining ride. Get into the specifics, though, and there's something about Gone Baby Gone that renders it utterly forgettable. Seriously: if you saw it more than a year ago, can you recall a single solitary scene apart from the bit with the twist?
The film's plot, which follows a private detective's relentless pursuit to locate a missing girl, is made wholly memorable by the shocking reveal, when it turns out that a supposedly trustworthy police captain (played by Morgan Freeman) has been hiding her away the entire time. But it stands to reckon that the relatively "flat" nature of the film's tone results in a flick that's actually quite hard to recall.
Well-made and competently written, Gone Baby Gone fails to leave a true mark because most of its procedural aspects aren't easily differentiated.