No good dead goes unpunished

Rating: 10/10 (31 August 2008)

The overall plot was perhaps too fanciful for me to suspend disbelief entirely. But the film's symbolism was deep, wide and dead on! This may be the best film I've seen to date about America's current "predicament" (Iraq, Wall Street, Bush administration, poverty, class warfare, et al.)
My wife and I had a HUGE argument regarding the basic moral dilemma over young Amanda McCready. Like Patrick Kenzie, the film's protagonist, I was compelled to defend "the rules" over the alternative, whereby "the end justifies the means".
In short, my argument was thus: each time any of us willingly chooses to place our thumb on the scale of justice - i.e. bends or breaks the basic code (rule of law) that establishes the larger framework, however flawed, for our society in our complex world with many competing motives, then we are ALL damned.
Thus, Bush invades Iraq, because Saddam Hussein is evil. Banks lend to borrowers that can't afford to repay, because it's legal and the fees are lucrative. Right wing radicals bomb abortion clinics, because abortion is murder.
In other words, just WHERE does "playing God" end? With this riveting film, Affleck contends that no matter where it begins -- it always ends badly.