All the subtlety, and nuance so notably missing from Ben Affleck’s wooden pretty-boy acting can be found in this impressive directorial debut. It was clear from the Oscar success of Good Will Hunting 10 years ago, that Affleck and Matt Damon penned and starred in, that Affleck could write. But based upon the recent Brad Pitt Jesse James film and this taught, tough, tangled thriller, Casey is the better acting talent of the Affleck family. But Ben’s Directorial assurance is clear from the powerful opening shots of run down, blue-collar South Boston. There is warmth, even affection in the visual texture and almost elegiac tone provided by Harry Gregson Williams’ soundtrack, as Affleck takes us into the tough, street savvy world of his own childhood. Just as a writer will feel most at home writing of his own experience, so Affleck has returned to the background from which he and Will Hunting escaped but Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) still lives and survives in.

This is Sleepers (Barry Levinson 1996) territory – the narratives of life-long mates tangled together with only an attachment to neighbourhood, place and an overlay of visceral Catholicism to hold them together. Some go away, some go back, some go bad – but they all go way-back. Like a pack of wolves running together where everyone knows the ones in the pack to watch out for.

Patrick and his lover Angie (the nicely understated Michelle Monaghan) grew up together and run a kind of based-in-the-kitchen private detective business. With the official policing either brutal or bent but certainly distrusted, often with good cause, Patrick and Angie spin personal acquaintance with the people and the neighbourhood into finding out information about what’s really happening on the streets that its distrustful denizens will never tell the cops.

So when feckless, sluttish Helen McCready (a revelatory Amy Ryan) discovers her home alone 4 year-old Amanda has been stolen, her desperate aunt Bea (Amy Madigan) engages Kenzie and Angie to ‘supplement’ the official police investigation. Assistance Morgan Freeman’s Captain Jack Doyle could do without. But as a registered investigator Kenzie has rights so Doyle delegates gimlet-eyed Detective Remy Bressant (Ed Harris, re-haired from recent roles but none the worse for that) to go through the motions of cooperation. Initial contempt at Kenzie’s youthful looks develops into a mutual respect as the fresh-faced 28 year-old mines the veins of local acqaintance to reveal clues blocked to Bressant.

Adapted from a Dennis Lehane thriller of the same name Affleck faces the stock problem of the film-maker with adaptations in this genre – how to distil the inevitable ‘plottiness’ in a good crime book, into satisfying cinematic form. I guess he succeeds well enough but the typically convoluted plot readers of the genre love gets a bit muddling on screen. But if the denouement is the destination of this movie it is the journey, the ride that absorbs, fascinates and keeps you on the edge of your seat. For review purposes it is better to let this simply unwind before you. Suffice to say it twists its way to a touching conclusion not without some surprise. But leaves us with a not insubstantial moral question.

There is a non-judgemental quality about Affleck’s use of twice Oscar winner Cinematographer John Toll’s (Thin Red Line etc) images and Oscar nominee editor William Goldenberg (Ali, The Insider). His key character Kenzie reflects the same kind of ‘there but for the grace of God go I’ empathy with the criminally entangled, sometime drug mule, all-time addict and deeply unlovable Helen. Affleck shoots the street scenes with a sense of affinity and authenticity born from personal experience. ‘I know this place – this was me’. If the dialogue is more Chandler/Elmore Leonard stylish and knowing than your average South Boston conversation, it does capture some of the pride in identity and sense of place tough districts can generate. ‘It may be a dump – but it’s our dump’. Hard to know how much of the scabrous wit and sarcastic dialogue is Lehane’s and how much Affleck’s but it has an authentically ‘hip’ feel to it.

Casey Affleck gets better movie to movie. He uses that unique quizzical drawl to full effect though he has a couple of screen mannersisms he leans on a bit and needs to watch. Both as Jesse James’ killer ‘the coward’John Ford and here, he is able to give a sense of complexity and depth to his characters. Freeman is as dignified and strong as ever and the ever-reliable Ed Harris handles the plot-driven ambiguities of Bressant’s role with typical conviction.

The central moral dilemma of the film that Affleck focuses in on and leaves us with demonstrates that after all the immediate physical threat and dangers, there are other kinds of sadness that we can witness in the lives of children. The release of this film was deferred in the UK for some time because of the onging Madelaine McCann story. It is an ironic coincidence that the little actress who plays 4 year-old Amanda looks a bit like Maddy McCann and her name is Madelaine O’Brien.

Best thriller of the year so far and it does more than it says on the tin. Well worth a look.

Quite fancy this one, Zettel but it's not on here yet. I LOVED The Assassination of JJ - my favourite film of last year.