When 4 year old Amanda McCready disappears from her home and the police make little headway in solving the case, the girl's aunt Beatrice McCready hires two private detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro. The detectives freely admit that they have little experience with this type of case, but the family wants them for two reasons - they're not cops and they know the tough Boston neighborhood in which they all live. As the case progresses, Kenzie and Gennaro face drug dealers, gangs and pedophiles. When they are about to solve their case, they are faced with a moral dilemma that could tear them apart.Written by
garykmcd
Amy Ryan looked and sounded so convincing as a low-class Dorchester mom that a security guard mistook her for a fan on the first day of location filming and wouldn't let her on the set. One of the producers finally noticed her on the other side of one of the barricades and said she should be let through. The incident made Ryan twenty minutes late, but convinced her the Boston accent she'd prepared was realistic. See more »
Goofs
When Detectives Bressant and Poole are preparing to raid the house, they load a shotgun with rounds from a blue plastic box. The rounds in the box all have indented primers which would make the ammo useless. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Patrick Kenzie:
I always believed it was the things you don't choose that makes you who you are. Your city, your neighborhood, your family. People here take pride in these things, like it was something they'd accomplished. The bodies around their souls, the cities wrapped around those. I lived on this block my whole life; most of these people have. When your job is to find people who are missing, it helps to know where they started. I find the people who started in the cracks and then fell through...
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Crazy Credits
In the credits, Ben Affleck gives special thanks to Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, both members of the Boston Red Sox World Series championship teams of 2004 and 2007. See more »
My admiration for Ben Affleck has gone way up after realizing this film is his directorial debut. Depressing in that it shows the seedy underbelly of life and the truly horrible flaws of human beings, it sucks you in with the excellent acting of the principle characters. When I first saw his brother Casey on the screen my reaction was probably the same as most viewers - this guy is way too young to play the character written for him and he's out of his depth. I was so wrong on both points. Casey Affleck is great in a very understated way as a man haunted by his morality in what is right and wrong and you see the struggle he goes through as the film develops towards its heartbreaking conclusion. Everyone played their parts well and any film with Morgan Freeman in it is worth a look as he is a fine actor. The only criticism I have about the film is the use of the 'f' word in almost every sentence. I guess a film about the underbelly of life in Boston would not be realistic without the 'f' word but it was 'overkill' to me and shows a lack of originality. However, the script is amazing and the story is well told as it unfolds to its conclusion. I found the ending scene so profound and powerful in its predictability and ordinariness that it's impact was like a punch to the gut. Without giving anything away, the ending scene shows that life goes on, one way or another!
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My admiration for Ben Affleck has gone way up after realizing this film is his directorial debut. Depressing in that it shows the seedy underbelly of life and the truly horrible flaws of human beings, it sucks you in with the excellent acting of the principle characters. When I first saw his brother Casey on the screen my reaction was probably the same as most viewers - this guy is way too young to play the character written for him and he's out of his depth. I was so wrong on both points. Casey Affleck is great in a very understated way as a man haunted by his morality in what is right and wrong and you see the struggle he goes through as the film develops towards its heartbreaking conclusion. Everyone played their parts well and any film with Morgan Freeman in it is worth a look as he is a fine actor. The only criticism I have about the film is the use of the 'f' word in almost every sentence. I guess a film about the underbelly of life in Boston would not be realistic without the 'f' word but it was 'overkill' to me and shows a lack of originality. However, the script is amazing and the story is well told as it unfolds to its conclusion. I found the ending scene so profound and powerful in its predictability and ordinariness that it's impact was like a punch to the gut. Without giving anything away, the ending scene shows that life goes on, one way or another!