After the Oscar winning success of Good Will Hunting, Afflecks place in filmdom seemed assured. Then he made a few disastrous choices, such as Armageddon and Gigli. The press had a field day throughout the whole "Bennifer" debacle. Everyone thought his career was over.
He bounced back as a class act with the acclaimed Hollywoodland, and now has everyone falling at his feet as an extremely accomplished director.

He has chosen a novel by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River). The story is set in Boston (where Affleck and young brother Casey grew up), and concerns the abduction of little girl Amanda McCready, and private investigating couple Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and Angie Genarro(Michelle Monaghan), and their attempts to solve the disappearance of the child. Because of his apparent youth, Kenzie is ridiculed by the police, led by Captain Jack Doyle (Freeman) along with his decidedly dodgy detectives, Remy Bressant (Harris) and Nick Poole (Ashton). The Childs mother (a fantastic turn by Amy Ryan) is a drink and drug addled lowlife with a raft of social problems. Afflecks casting of his younger sibling in the lead role is a masterstroke. Affleck junior is superb in a very difficult role, veering between innocent sensitivity and bullish confrontation, handlng the intricasies of the part with supreme confidence.

There are suspects in every dingy bar and dark alleyway.
The very complex plot is riveting, revolving around kidnapping, paedophilia, murder, robbery and police corruption. Afflecks handling of the difficult material is faultless, and the skill with which he frames each moment is obviously helped by his knowledge of, and fondness of Boston. As the story unfolds, more and more surprising layers of the plot are revealed, and the final revelation is stunning as well as unexpected. The ending leaves viewers in a total social quandary as to the morality of the final outcome.

The release of this movie was delayed for several months because of the similarities to the Madeline McCann case. Wether or not this was justified is down to the viewer.

Now that we can go and see it I can't urge you strongly enough to do so.