Truth and Consequences

Rating: 8/10 (6 August 2008)

Some keen dialog here. Boston policeman, Ed Harris, to Private Investigator, Casey Affleck: "Look, just forget what I said the other night and we'll be friends." Affleck: "And if I don't?" Harris: "That's not the kind of 'if' you want to bring into your life." It's the story of a three-year-old girl apparently kidnapped from her single mother, Amy Ryan. Ryan's sister hires two amateur young sleuths from the neighborhood, Affleck and Michelle Monaghan, to poke around and see if they can turn up any leads on the girl's whereabouts. The police, Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman, as a captain in the BPD, cooperate reluctantly.
The cops advise Affleck to give up the search because the girl must be dead, but he and his partner persist, leading to a couple of deaths, including that of the child who is evidently drowned in a quarry. Some time passes. A friend gives Affleck a hint about a child molester. Affleck calls Harris and as they approach the house, more shootings and deaths occur. I'm being deliberately vague because this plot is full of twists and odd plot turns, many of the most important ones revealed in momentary flashbacks. The result of this directorial decision, unless my brain is turning to tofu, is some confusion about the details of events. Anyway, I'll let the plot go at this point.
The general impression a viewer gets from the movie is that Boston, the city that gave us Paul Revere, Benjamin Franklin, Indian pudding and the baked bean, is now about as ugly and dangerous a place as New York City. This is a very naturalistic movie, meaning you don't get to see any ritzy restaurants, there is no shot of the Old North Church, and nobody goes water skiing on the North Shore. The F word is used exactly one million, two hundred, and three times. I counted. There is little bonhomie. Most of the people seem to slouch around in black Gothic rags with crucifixes or St. Christopher medallions used as fashion accents. A goodly number smoke marijuana (Gasp!) or snort coke, even after it spills on the floor. Bad guys may die, but so do good guys, and some of the best of the good guys wind up in the slams for reasons that are at best arguable.
And that's the crux of the film -- that arguable quality. Should a person live according to inflexible principles that may be too lofty for practical use? Would you insist on telling the truth, though the heavens fall? (See "Prince of the City" for an examination of a similar dilemma.) More specifically, if you found a child who had been kidnapped by a loving family, would you insist that she be returned to her immoral and uncaring biological mother, knowing that in doing so you would see the law upheld but would be consigning the child to an almost certainly wrecked life? Casey Affleck is the central figure, and he provides a sketchy narration. It's hard to judge his performance. He displays little range but maybe that's how he's decided to draw the character. His voice has all the semihemidemiquavers of Jimmy Stewart's but none of the expressiveness. Morgan Freeman is impressive, as always, a sublime actor. Michelle Monaghan's character seems to be in the film in order to prove that Affleck is heterosexual and to provide him with something to risk losing. The best performance may be given by Amy Ryan as the child's flawed mother. It's a most difficult role, too. Ryan has to walk a fine line between genuine but fleeting motherly instincts and frivolous self indulgence on the other. It's hard to see how anyone could have done better than she did. Ed Harris does well, too, as the cop who is willing to recognize a distinction between formal principle and pragmatism, and to be willing to sacrifice for a good that is outside the law. But then everyone is pretty good. Not a sour note in the bunch.
Warning: Children under the age of 35 may fall asleep. This movie is made for adults. Shots are fired in only two scenes, and they are mostly pops and flashes in the background. There is no sex or nudity. There are long scenes in which nobody wrenches someone else's head off and pees down his neck cavity. They just sit and talk. The film doesn't provide instant gratification -- not during the meandering unfolding of the plot, nor at the end.
Ben Affleck directed. He needs a little seasoning but his judgment is generally good. The script is a bit weak in presenting us with that dilemma, by the way. The protagonist is in a quandary over whether to punish good guys for breaking the law in order to achieve a greater good. But that makes him more than ordinarily extrapunitive. After all, earlier he murdered a helpless child molester and THAT doesn't seem to bother him much. He's better at forgiving himself than at forgiving others. The script kind of skips over that little problem.
See it if you can. You won't wind up whistling a happy tune but you might find yourself wondering about the issues raised here.