A fine directorial debut from Ben Affleck

Rating: 8/10 (10 November 2007)

I saw this movie on opening night, and i was telling my fiancé all day how great this movie was going to be and how excited I was for us seeing it. The movie has the kind of plot that I love and a cast any director would die for. So let me start off by saying the movie was very good, and the acting was top notch, especially from Ed Harris ( when is he not good ) and a surprise performance from Casey Affleck in the leading role. A lot of people think Ben Affleck is not a good actor, and i would disagree with that, but for those of you who think he is bad actor, he has definitely been taking notes on how to make a movie, because he does a wonderful job. There are some very intense scenes, the scene on the cliff, and the scene where they have to bust into the house, but when the movie ended i felt like i really wanted to love this movie, but it was not quite there. And i feel the reason it was not there is because these cops were searching for a little girl who was not even loved by her mother, and the scene where the mother breaks down crying to Casey Affleck felt forced and felt like it had no emotion in it. And the ending, man, the whole time i was saying there is no way that could be the ending, and it was. The ending was just not believable, and for those of you who have not seen the movie will know what I'm talking about. I am looking forward to more of Mr. Afflecks movies, and this one was very good, but could have been a masterpiece.