Gone, just gone

Rating: 5/10 (26 July 2008)

There are two aspects to this movie... the posing of a serious moral dilemma with a complicated, seriously flawed plot. The goal, to propose the dilemma could have been presented without the flaws, which would have made a much better movie, but not one where everyone left saying, "Gee, I never had it figured out." Of course you didn't. We all work within the basis of our human experience. And when people do things in movies which are against self interest but advance a plot to confuse us, I call that mere trickery.
First, the plot errors. The reason no one could logically figure out "who done it" is that so many people do things which people just don't do. The first was the brother in law... the one who helped set up the whole scheme in the first place. He overheard the conversation which set up the heist of the money from the robbers of the drug dealer. OK, that's fine, except why in the world would he go with his wife to our intrepid detectives to hire them to discover what he had done. Or if that seems believable do you think anyone would volunteer his pension to be discovered? He could have just gone as a bump on the log. But no, he wants to get caught? Then when the Deadly Duo go to the cops with what they've found out about the druggie mom, the cops act surprised... fine they should be. But when they go to question her, they really grill her until she snaps. They could have asked a few polite questions (or without such vigor) and left. But no, they yell and scream at her until they get the truth. Did they forget they don't want the truth? And then the whole charade with Morgan Freeman and the recorded phone call. Sure they want the suckers (the detectives) to be witnesses to their Comedy Francaise, but all they would have to have done would present a phony note, or just say there was a conversation which got back to the top cop and they were meeting the coco loco drug dealer to get the girl back. No! Top cop wants to get caught too. And is. Plots like this are merely designed to fool us, the watcher. No thanks. The writers felt this is necessary in order to set up the moral dilemma... is it best to return the poor little girl to her addicted mom and a life of poverty and abuse or leave her with Morgan Freeman, to be reared "happily" away from her neglecting mother. Affleck's character decides, correctly, that she must be returned and the perpetrators of all these crimes, if not already dead, imprisoned. This is not decision for the benefit of the little girl. It is a decision for the benefit of society. If everyone just went around deciding whom to kill, whom to rob, whose children to take away, we would live in a world of more chaos than we already do. So we can thank the writers for at least posing a serious question of morality. But they could have done it ever so much more honestly.