That 'Girl' is Poison

David Fincher is probably one of the best directors working today. Considering that his film career was almost over before it begun, he has an impressive resume.
First, he was tapped to direct Alien 3, one of the biggest flops of the 1990s. But rebounded with Se7en, a movie that made Morgan Freeman a major star and Brad Pitt a respectable actor. Se7en was notable for its bleak, grim look and an ending that challenged the deus ex machina of thrillers. Then, he made The Game in 1997, a movie that like its title is a game not only on the main character played by Michael Douglas, but the audience as well. Watching it a second time after knowing the twist, you see things just as a character trying to say his lines without laughing.
Finally, to close out the decade, he made Fight Club, which was supposed to be another late summer release that the studio, 20th Century Fox, reportedly didn't have much faith in, but became popular despite almost universal negative criticism. Now, it is seen as a masterpiece that made some critics eat crow.
After that, he made a few highs with Zodiac, a creepy psychological thriller about the Zodiac Killer and its effect on the detectives and journalists tracking the case, and The Social Network, which made Mark Zuckerberg into a nerdy Michael Corleone following by a few lows, such as Panic Room, which Jared Leto's atrociously bad acting and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a movie that goes at a snail's pace that you actually feel years older after finishing it, if you can.
Gone Girl is a wonderful misstep. It has a lot of ambition and a great set-up but fails miserably. If you haven't seen it, STOP READING BECAUSE THE REST CONTAINS SPOILERS.
Gone Girl is obviously inspired by the 24/7 media and court of public opinion assuming people are killers just because they seem suspicious. The movie draws inspiration from the Scott Peterson case as well as the rush to judgment in the JonBenet Ramsey and Chondra Levy cases as well as the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta and how the media made Richard Jewell out to be a suspect.
Ben Affleck plays Nick Dunne, who seems to be channeling Peterson, as a failed New York City writer having to move back to his hometown in middle-America Missouri, where he looks after his sickly mother who eventually dies of cancer and he begins to teach at a college and operate a bar with his twin sister, Margo, or Go for short, played by Carrie Coon. His wife, Amy (Rosamund Pike), a New York socialite resents him for moving to BFE, Missouri. But what she really resents him for is the fact that he is having an affair with one of his students, so she decides basically to frame him for her murder.
Bitch Be Crazy would be a more appropriate title. Her whole plan doesn't make a lot of sense and is based on what the late Roger Ebert would call the Idiot Plot Device, whereas for everything to happen in a movie, everyone must be an idiot.
While Nick is at the bar, Amy decides to fake the assault by bleeding out at least one pint of blood on the floor and staging the house like there has been a scuffle. She also befriends a neighbor, who is pregnant and an idiot, and steals her pee to make it look like she is pregnant. She also fills the neighbor's head full of false stories of her husband so she will be the one constantly bothering police with information they need to know.
This is one of many things wrong with the movie. The next I will list off individually.
1. To lead the police to clues, Amy actually leaves clues leading to a house where they will find a partially burned diary with false reports of Nick's abuse.
2. While one detective questions why the diary would have been partially burned or left at all, everyone else seems to shake it off.
3. Speaking of the diary, since the police obtain it without a search warrant, it is inadmissible. The police actually go into a house, which belong's to Nick's father, suffering from Alzheimer's Disease, without permission or a warrant and obtain it.  Tyler Perry as Nick's lawyer never asks this when presented with the diary during a questioning.
4. Rather than contacting a lawyer knowing that the police went into the house illegally, he does nothing.
5. Amy's parents, who seem to be so sickened by the fact they are anywhere but Manhattan or the Hamptons, never once demand that a state or federal agency handle the case, but they wouldn't have to because a task force would more than likely have been formed.
6. Amy uses Craiglist to buy a car, for money, from someone thinking it will not leave a trace, but every car has to be registered. After Amy's disappearance, you think the seller would say, "Oh, yeah, I remember her. Sold her a car." Then, they would be a BOLO for the vehicle.
7. Amy changes her hair and uses the Clark Kent ruse by wearing glasses thinking that no one will notice her, but she quickly befriends some people while trying to stay low.
8. The friends quickly screw her over when they realize she has a money belt. Rather than go after them because she is willing to frame her husband for murder, she lets them go even though they apparently have no weapons.
9. Amy draws more attention to herself by sleeping in her car in a motel parking lot, and being approached by a security guard. Then, she foolishly goes into a casino where where is recognized by someone.
10. She contacts an ex-boyfriend, played by Neil Patrick Harris, who is filthy rich and even though she grew up in the New York City area, he is able to drive across half the country to the Ozarks.
11. NPH takes her to his lake home, which has security cameras that late Amy tries to use to her advantage when she tries to pretend that NPH violently assaults her. However, the video is never brought into question since it apparently covers everything meaning it would show when Amy actually arrived even though she tries to have them believe she was there for a month, tied up.
12. After killing NPH and covered in his blood from head to toe, Amy drives back to her Missouri home to show off for the TV cameras.
13. Now the cops along with the FBI proved to be truly incompetent. Rather than question why Amy didn't stop at the first hospital or police station or drive back from a place, she probably would've had no idea she was at, they forget about it. She is also able to drive a long distance on a single tank over night without having to stop anywhere to refuel.
14. No one questions why NPH would choose the day Affleck is at the bar to attack and kidnap Amy.
15. The nosy neighbor who apparently calls Nick about his front door being open never notices NPH outside the house.
16. Also, NPH wouldn't know anything about the diary and nothing about the home of Nick's father.
17. If you're going to burn a diary, it's paper, it burns quite quickly. This isn't like the metal in Wolverine, you don't have to set it at a temperature. It would take a few minutes to burn the diary.
18. Going back to the guy at the casino, who sees NPH and Amy together, he would come out and say, "Yeah, I saw them at the casino on such and such."
19. Amy tries to frame Nick for making several high purchases on credit card through mail orders, yet, there is no way of tracking these? Every time, she would have signed for the package, there would be a record in which Amy signed for them.
20. Amy stockpiles these items at the woodshed outside Margo's house where Nick had affairs with the college student and Margo not once decides to go into the woodshed.
21. When receiving an anonymous tip about the woodshed, the police go to a judge to get a search warrant to search the woodshed.
22. When the police execute the search warrant, they know Nick has Madea as a lawyer, so rather than telling him to get the lawyer to look over the warrant or even have Nick read it, they just flash it and begin breaking into the woodshed.
23. While the CSI believe that Nick would leave a murder weapon, made out of wood, which also burns like paper, in a fireplace in July partially burned, they don't both to dust any of the items in the woodshed for fingerprints, where they would find NO PRINTS belonging to Nick or Margo.
24. Nick is jailed for murder but spends days in jail still wearing his street clothes rather than an inmate uniform.
25. When Nick is released from jail, even though he would be in county jail, the police allow him to be taken out in an area where the media see him.
26. When Amy is being questioned by authorities after claiming rape, a dozen agents, mostly men, are in the room with her. In 2012, the year the movie is set, it is proper protocol to have a female officer to initially interview a rape victim.
27. No one at the hospital thinks to keep Amy overnight for observation.
28, No one at the hospital thinks to clean all the blood off of Amy, which is still wet, even by then, it should have dried and caked on her.
29. No one bothers to investigate Amy's claims even though they seem more fishy than framing Nick.
30. Even though the return of Amy makes Nick and Amy popular, Tyler Perry's lawyer decides NOT to pursue a slander or libel lawsuit against the Nancy Grace-like news pundit played well by Missi Pyle. Richard Jewell was able to sue the media outlets who damaged his reputation following the bombing.
There's more problems with Gone Girl, but there's actually a few good things about it. Rosamund Pike has fun as Amy and Perry is good in his role as the big city lawyer who hits Nick with gummy bears while coaching him on how to speak during a TV interview.
Gone Girl would've worked better as a satire, but since Fincher and writer Gillian Flynn want to make a serious statement, they get more concerned with the statement than how to present it.