Gone Baby Gone (2007)

Memo to the Affleck brothers - Ben, stick to directing, but leave the acting to your brother Casey.

Based on the Dennis Lehane novel of the same name, Gone Baby Gone is less the story of a child's abduction than it is a character study of those searching for her - private detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro (Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan), the Boston Police (Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris), and the girl's own family (Amy Ryan, Titus Welliver, and Amy Madigan) - and how far they're willing to go to make sure the case ends happily. The plot is supremely revelatory, exposing piece by piece details of the abudction, building to a conclusion as shocking as Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express. Ultimately the film becomes a meditation, much like Alan Moore's magnum opus Watchmen, on the morality of making things right. Which lines (as I'm certain Christian Bale finds himself asking as Batman) are worth crossing?

Let it be known first and foremost that I am not the world's greatest Ben Affleck fan. He was supposed to be blind in Daredevil? He was supposed to be British in Shakespeare in Love? He got an Oscar before Martin Scorsese?! So that makes my enjoyment of his direction here all the more landmark since it makes me a convert to the church of Affleck. Ben displays a knack for direction that would surprise any who are familiar with his empty portrayals that ought not be as irritating as they often find themselves. Similarly, Casey Affleck is incredible as the lead detective on the case, proving that he's as versatile as he is worldweary-voiced, racking up the Oscar nominations that Ben thought he had coming with his dismal turn in Hollywoodland in what appears to be a mockery of George Reeves.

The ensemble cast is similarly powerful, with the exception of Monaghan, whose most powerful scenes take place behind closed doors where we can't even see her. Freeman and Harris are their usual selves, respectively wise and tempermental, but they do such a good job at those roles that their casting seems natural. And Amy Ryan, as the lackadaisical addict mother who seems that she couldn't care less whether her child returns, deserves every accolade she receives for her turn, up to and including the Oscar nomination that is rightfully hers.

As unpredictable as it is extraordinary, Gone Baby Gone does what a lot of movies do - get me to jump in my seat - but it also does what very few films can do these days - smack me with a contemplative surprise ending. To ruminate further on it would be to spoil the movie for anyone, but suffice it to say that this movie kicks you in the gut the way The Sixth Sense did when you realized the full import of the line "I see dead people."