(2007) There is the world of man-made laws (actually rules, since laws should have permanence such as gravity and the speed of light), and then there is the moral universe in which these rules temporarily reside. Ben Affleck has adapted (with Aaron Stockard) Dennis Lehane's novel and directed this provocative film with his brother Casey as private detective Patrick Kenzie, which takes place in Boston and dramatizes a morally ambiguous parable.

How does one survive in an environment as treacherous as this city, Patrick asks his priest, without committing sins? "Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves."

Patrick and his partner/girlfriend Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan), who have not before handled such a high-profile case, agree to help Bea McCready (Amy Madigan) and her husband Lionel (Titus Welliver) search for their abducted niece, four-year-old Amanda, who's been missing three days. "We can't do any harm, right?"

The little girl's mother, the less-than-forthcoming Helene McCready (Amy Ryan), is an alcoholic/drug addict, who was with her boyfriend Skinny Ray at the Fillmore Tavern at the time of the kidnapping. The gruff police captain, Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman), who lost his 12-year-old daughter, tells the pair of private eyes that the chances of finding the victim alive are slim: "I don't care who does it. I just want it done." Doyle gives permission to his detectives, Remy Bressant (Ed Harris) and Nick Poole (John Ashton), to collaborate with Kenzie and Gennaro.

Using his Boston wiles and numerous contacts in the underground drug trade, Patrick discovers clues the detectives have missed. Helene stole $130,000 from drug pusher/pimp/pornographer Cheese (Edi Gathegi). In Chelsea they find Skinny Ray tied to a chair, beaten bloody and shot dead; scared Helene shows them where she buried the cash.

Patrick volunteers to negotiate with Cheese for Amanda's release in return for the cash. Denying he abducted the girl, Cheese tells Patrick, who has pointed out how the police are ready to invade Cheese's operations, upsetting his lucrative businesses if he doesn't cooperate: "She's gone, baby. Gone."

Early the next morning Patrick and Angie are called to the police station, informed of a transcript of a telephone call from Cheese agreeing to make the exchange at the quarry. But things go wrong in the dark. "We never understood what happened that night," Patrick admits.

Months later another abduction occurs involving three previous suspects. After Patrick receives commendations for acting courageously but wrestles with having killed one of the perpetrators (unarmed and in the back of the head) of the kidnapping, he says: "Murder's a sin." Remy responds: "It depends on who you do it to."

In trying to convince Patrick that even if it doesn't make it right, it doesn't make it wrong, the police detective, by way of example, discloses how in 1972 he planted evidence to get a conviction of a couple he knew were dealing drugs and neglecting a child but couldn't otherwise make a case. If the police go outside the rules to do what they believe to be the right thing, what are the laws by which we must conduct ourselves? Can we make legitimate assumptions to act above the law? By what right are we not to be held responsible and accountable?

More must be revealed about what happened at the quarry and what led up to that night. Do people with good intentions doing bad things deserve to be treated as if their motives were evil? Can serpents be innocent for being what they are while doves, attempting to act wisely, end up accursed?

Holding desperately to his personal code (if you know about it, and you knew better), defined by his church and the legal system, Patrick, abandoned by those nearest to him, must live with his decision and its consequences. "What's dangerous about the world today," wrote Newsweek's Lisa Miller, "is not belief in God - or secularism or unbelief - but ruthless certainty."

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Copyright © 2007 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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