Film

As the second screen adaptation of one of Dennis Lehane’s novels, Gone Baby Gone will be almost relentlessly compared to Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River (2003). So let’s get it over with: If first-time director Ben Affleck isn’t as assured as Our Man Clint when it comes to structure and rhythm, his movie is more formidable than anyone would expect. It’s a grimy, lived-in view of Boston’s working-class Dorchester section, and this time, Lehane’s Greek-tragic themes seem to grow more organically from the setting. Upbringing equals destiny, the movie suggests, as police officers, family members and—mainly—two grief-stricken private investigators (Casey Affleck and Monaghan) ponder the fate of an abducted child.

Initially, this is a tale of two Dorchesters. The girl is the daughter of a notorious crackhead (Ryan) who won’t squawk to police; Affleck and Monaghan are hired by the child’s aunt (Madigan) and uncle (Welliver) because local mainstays can get where the cops can’t. But as Gone Baby Gone goes through the motions of a routine, occasionally lumbering whodunit, class and moral distinctions become increasingly blurred. “Half the guys he knows are degenerates,” a detective played by Harris carps of Affleck’s character. Affleck retorts, “You know what the other half are? Cops.” By film’s end, doing the right thing has little to do with law and order.