An overdose of grime

“Gone Baby Gone” is by and large a notable piece of work, a strong directing debut by actor Ben Affleck that highlights attention-getting performances by Casey Affleck, the director’s brother, and Tony Award nominee Amy Ryan.

But, as adapted from the novel by Dennis Lehane, this brooding, somber film is also ragged around the edges and not without problematic aspects. Two shadows from the past hang over it, one affecting the kind of film it is and the other the way we perceive it.

Lehane’s 1998 genre piece is set in Boston and involves private detectives Patrick Kenzie (Affleck) and Angie Gennaro (an effective Michelle Monaghan) in a tale of possible child molestation and the power and limitations of the police. If that sounds familiar, it’s because “Gone Baby Gone” was in effect a dress rehearsal for Lehane’s 2001 breakthrough novel, “Mystic River,” magisterially filmed by Clint Eastwood.

It is, of course, completely unfair to compare a master director at his peak with someone just starting out, but the reality is that those similarities make it difficult not to do so. And what Eastwood accomplished with comparable material can’t help but shine a spotlight on those areas in which Affleck could have used a steadier hand and made less intrusive choices.

One superlative choice the director did make was to hire his brother Casey, who gives the kind of breakthrough performance his role in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” was supposed to be but wasn’t.

The younger Affleck brings a surprising gravitas and steel to the role of a young private investigator who, along with his girlfriend, is just getting started in the business in Boston’s rough Dorchester neighborhood. His performance touches all the bases from tough to sensitive and feels authentic.

“Gone Baby Gone” opens in the immediate aftermath of the disappearance of 4-year-old Amanda McCready. The police, led by Capt. Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman) of the Crimes Against Children unit, are doing all they can, but the little girl’s Aunt Bea (Amy Madigan) is not satisfied.

She comes to investigators Kenzie and Gennaro because she knows they have access to people in the neighborhood who won’t talk to the police. Gennaro has a bad feeling about taking the case, but Kenzie says their presence can’t hurt. Famous last words.

It turns out, just for openers, that little Amanda’s mother Helene is a true piece of work who is less than pleased at having private detectives around. As played by Ryan in a vibrant, knockout performance, venal, amoral and fearless Helene is the least appealing, most unsympathetic victim imaginable, a vivid example of the kind of lower-class lowlifes who make abysmal choices as a matter of course.

As unhappy as Helene at the investigators’ presence is veteran police detective Remy Bressant (another vital performance from Ed Harris, Madigan’s husband). But because the couple are connected to the neighborhood, they have ways to make people talk, often profanely, and what they find out leads to the multiple surprises of a complicated plot.

Though that narrative, inherited by screenwriters Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard from the book, finally strains credulity, Affleck the director works well with actors and brings a welcome sense of pace to the proceedings. Not everything he turns his hand to, however, is equally effective.

Much has been made in pre-release publicity of the film’s passion for local Boston color, for the way Affleck and his team doggedly scoured the streets and bars of that great metropolis to find characters who all but reeked of the real thing.

Although that quest is laudable in theory, and certainly helps create an appropriate setting for Ryan and Casey Affleck’s fine performances, even good things can be overdone, and it’s not long before the film’s fetish for authenticity becomes so self-conscious it actually detracts from the storytelling.

This same weaknesses for the extreme also make aspects of “Gone Baby Gone’s” plotting and characterization, especially a key child molestation subplot, much more grotesque than need be. This is where the comparison to Eastwood, who disturbed you with similar material without making you want to leave the theater, is most instructive.

A good part of all this unnecessary excess relates to Ben Affleck’s inexperience and will probably fade as he goes on to future projects, but, although it is pure speculation, something else also seems to be at play here.

As the film pushes bleak local color and morbid characterization hard enough to make you wince, it’s difficult not to feel that Affleck is doing more than simply telling a story, he’s trying to prove something. “I’m not the lightweight you thought I was,” “Gone Baby Gone” insists. “I’m not the B in Bennifer, I have more serious things on my mind.” Affleck succeeds in making that point and dispelling that shadow of his former life, but, as in so many things, less would have been more.

--

kenneth.turan@latimes.com

“Gone Baby Gone” MPAA rating: R for violence, drug content and pervasive language. Running time: 1 hour, 54 minutes. In general release.