A great gritty movie with a deeply unsatisfying ending

Rating: 8/10 (28 October 2007)

It's in all the magazines. Ben Affleck has returned as a force to be reckoned with; as a screenwriter and a director. After "Good will hunting" I knew he'd be back, but he really surprised me with this gritty, no nonsense, what the F... morality tale. Affleck goes back to his roots in Boston; the hard scrabble existence lived by too many of the urban working class. But he goes deeper into it's rotting underbelly, and it's a sobering ride.
A little girl goes missing; purportedly kidnapped; and for God knows what! Private eye Casey Affleck and his partner (Monahan) are asked by the grandmother to help uncover leads in the neighborhood that they are more familiar with than the cops. This doesn't sit well with anyone; not the cops; not the rest of the family; and not with his partner. But Casey is a straight arrow and he plunges ahead, and soon uncovers some pertinent evidence that throws them together with two hard bitten old cops (Ed Harris and John Ashton) who attempt to set up an uneasy alliance. Things go bad and the story seems to be hanging in limbo when along comes another child kidnapping, which goes off even worse. But it sets off alarm bells in Affleck as he realizes that Harris hasn't been straight with him about the earlier kidnapping.
Once again he plunges ahead against the pleas of his more cautious partner, and slowly he comes face to face with the truth about the first kidnapping. To me, and probably the majority of the audience who view criminals as scum, the end has an acceptable solution. Until Casey Affleck pushes his straight arrow morality, and then the movie goes flat, so horribly flat, leaving me (and probably 95% of the "when it comes to doing what's best for the child morality is Black and White brigade")totally deflated, angry and cursing Ben for following what was probably the book's ending instead of a more satisfying one.
The movie is way to good to be ruined by the ending, and for those who view hard realities as moral challenges, then this ending's for you. For those who like to be thrown curve balls that raise profound questions about what is the right thing to do, then this is for you too. But I bet that the ending will dampen the "you must see this movie" word of mouth that makes for a golden day at the Box Office. I wonder if the suits told Ben this, and I wonder if he told them to take a hike?