Culd have been more subtle but I liked it

Rating: 6/10 (2 February 2008)

It's the first screenplay written by Ben Affleck, the first time he's a director (it seems that there's another movie back in 1993) and he did very well. The cast is great. Casey Affleck of course. I started to like him recently when I saw Jesse James. I didn't really notice him in The Last Kiss, my badMorgan Freeman, Ed Harris, Michelle Monaghan.
The movie reaches his goal and makes you think. About justice, what justice, who is allowed to judge, to make choices for others. Does it make you good to shoot a pedophile who just killed a child? Do you feel better when you take a kid away from her junkie mother because you're convinced you're going to be a better parent to him? And do you think giving the kidnapped kid back to his mother after having her fake parents arrested was a good action? The movie could have missed his goal if it had stopped after Morgan Freeman and his wife are being arrested. But Ben Affleck added a last scene where you see Casey Affleck visiting the mother of the kid as she's getting ready for a date. The kid is on the couch watching TV, the mother is leaving and doesn't care about her kid staying alone in the house. Casey proposes to watch her baby. The mother leaves, Casey stays, sits on the couch and thinks. The scene could have been never ending. Watching a man thinking about his action(s), over and over again. Did he act right or not? Yes he knows he acted right because legally you cannot kidnap a kid even to give him a better life. But this moral purpose is killing Casey because he knows the kid would have been loved and happier with Morgan Freeman and his wife.
Does this sound a little manichaeist? I didn't really feel that way. The simple concept of being good or bad is certainly manichaeist but beyond that, I thought it was more about moral in our society. At the end of the movie everyone will be convinced that the little kid would have led a better life with Freeman and his lady. It is undoubtedly immoral to steal a kid from his mother and family. On the other hand it is also immoral not to raise your kid when you're a mother and it should be punished for sure. It's certainly not up to your neighbor to decide what's good for you though, for your kid or for any member of your family.
So you're stuck with you good moral and your big heart. The screenplay is good and unexpected. I thought it was somewhat caricatural and unreal though in a sense that it's hard to believe that the police would actually close such a case so quickly especially when they couldn't find the missing kid's body. Too emphasized too because the kidnappers are the cops, those very ones who are supposed to enforce the law and leave their morale in a closet. On the other side you've got Casey Affleck, a private detective who's better than any cop, upright, brave, persevering. Confusing rightAnd finally the episode with Casey's girlfriend who's like unable to discuss his decision. "If you do that, I will hate you" she says. So yeah the idea is thrown at you rather violently, just to make sure you get it and I suppose it could have been done with more subtlety. But it remains a good movie to me and I recommend it.