Another week, another disappointment. It’s not that I expected something tremendous from Ben Affleck’s directorial debut. Here’s a guy who’s done nothing but dreck in the last four years, and now he’s directed his first film. Now, it must be said, Gone Baby Gone is actually pretty impressive given that Affleck was behind it all, co-writing as well as directing. Some of the performances, and a lot of material near the end, work very well. There is definite promise for Affleck in the directing field, and I for one would love to see him stick behind the camera (at least for a few years). His acting breakthrough recently was his performance in the underwhelming Hollywoodland, and now, with this film, he has definitely taken if not a leap, a step forward. But I can honestly say the last film I saw him that I enjoyed was the excellent film Changing Lanes, released way back in April 2002, over five years ago!

But anyway, this isn’t a review of Ben Affleck, this is a review of his film. It’s a decent, flawed, sometimes too slow-moving, sometimes surprising, sometimes excellent, most of the time so-what, kind of a police procedural movie. There were few moments in this that I felt like I could just be watching a glorified Law & Order episode. Law & Order does storylines about missing kids, right? I’m not really sure, given that I’ve never actually sat and watched a whole Law & Order episode. But, do you know what I mean? The storyline of Gone Baby Gone isn’t cinematic in many ways. There are a few scenes that lend itself to visually interesting moments, but for the most, it’s two-shot, over the shoulder, over the shoulder, talk, more talk, stand up, leave the room, kind of scenes. And all that would be forgivable if the story were riveting. There is a development in the end that is pretty fascinating, offering up all kinds of questions, making the viewer have to make an ethical choice about a possibly corrupt decision. But for the most part, this is a dull storyline.

Affleck has an immediate hook in the story, in that we find out before the opening credits are finished that a young 4-year-old girl has been kidnapped. Casey Affleck’s, Ben’s little bro, plays a private investigator who takes on the case, and with each unraveling of the mystery, he starts to get deeper and deeper into a case that may be a little too much for him to handle. Michelle Monaghan plays his investigator girlfriend who tires to keep him on the right side of the law, and Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman play seemingly innocent men who may or may not be exactly who they seem to be. Amy Ryan, in a memorably annoying performance, plays the little girl’s mother, who doesn’t really seem to care whether or not her daughter comes back to her.

And that may be my biggest problem with the movie… the mother’s complete indifference to her daughter. It sort of needs to be there for the twist ending to work, but I found trouble getting involved in the storyline due to the lack of interest from the mother. Ryan perfectly captures that kind of apathetic trailer trash woman who was impregnated at a young age and stuck with a kid, even though she never cared to have or wanted one. This could’ve all been outlined delicately in the screenplay, but we’re never given a glimpse into the young girl’s life because she’s kidnapped. I feel like this film could work better if we got a sense of her home life before she got taken, if we could really meet her. Since we never see her, director Affleck seems to take the position that the story should be more focused on private investigator Affleck than the young girl, which is probably in direct relation with the novel, but doesn’t hold up as well for the film. I wanted to know more about the little girl, not about the investigator.

Casey Affleck has been getting rave notices lately for his back-to-back performances in Gone Baby Gone and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. He’s attractive, a decent actor. But I don’t think he can carry a movie. He lacks charisma and excitement. The character he plays in Gone Baby Gone is supposed to look a little young for his age, be a little bit inexperienced, but he is in almost every scene and just gets dull after awhile. Monaghan, as his girlfriend, is a complete dead zone, walking in and out of scenes as a zombie. She has absolutely nothing to do from beginning to end in this movie, and instead just acts as someone for Affleck’s character to bounce ideas off of. Harris and Freeman are their usual excellent selves, especially Harris, who has some powerful moments, but they do nothing you haven’t seen before. Freeman has a wonderful scene at the end of the movie outside of his house, where he tries to press an idea upon Affleck’s character so thoroughly and so engagingly, that we as viewers almost want to believe he’s right in what he’s doing. Almost.

There are some positives about the movie, including the way Affleck uses many tremendous character actors who blend into the action very well without distracting from the main quartet. And technically the movie is fairly good, particularly in the cinematography, although the editing could’ve used some work here and there, especially with all the flashback material. My gripe with the movie is that there just isn’t anything about it to get excited about. The story? Been there, done that. The performances? Decent to solid, with no surprises. Surprise twists? One toward the end, but not enought to make me want to recommend the film to anyone, or make me want to see it again. This is one of the most pleasant enough dramas that pass the time well enough but leave little to savor once the end credits are rolling. It could’ve been worse, far worse, but it also should’ve been better. In the last few years, Affleck tumbled down a giant hill that he just started climbing up again. He made it past the first few rocks, but now there’s a giant boulder in his way. Let’s try not to stare too close as to what he’s going to do next.

2 1/2 stars (out of 4)