I’ve seen the movie; Ben Affleck is a hack as an actor, but not a bad director at all.
I would’ve left the little girl with Morgan Freeman. Hell, I might leave my own child with Morgan Freeman*.
It all comes down to the best interests of the child, and Morgan Freeman and missus would clearly have provided the best environment for her. The mother is a negligent parent, a druggie, and a major league skank; it’s only a matter of time until Child Welfare authorities remove her from the home and deposit her in the hellish foster care system anyway. True, Freeman (as well as the aunt) could have gotten Amanda through legitimate channels, but the way the Child Welfare bureaucracy works, there’s no guarantee that she wouldn’t have gone right back to the mother despite her obvious flaws.
This may be unpopular, but I believe people have a right to be crappy parents. Not abusive parents, mind you. But run of the mill crappy- yeah. Most of humanity throughout history has been raised by dirt-poor uneducated teenage parents who probably had a drinking problem. What gets us through and makes our lives worth it is love. And a poor, trashy, uneducated parent is just as capable of showing love. Most people who grew up in this kind of household wouldn’t trade their families away for anything in the world. Who are we to decide this for them?
The “goal” is to do what is “good and right” in a manner that is fair, applied consistantly and based on defined laws.
A common theme in a lot of crime drama is policemen acting illegally in the name of some “higher good”. Planting evidence on a known drug dealer. Shaking down criminals, or in this case, kidnapping a child. If corruption is allowed in the interest of the “greater good”, what is to stop them from taking it further and acting in their own interests for selfish reasons?
The problem is that policemen are agents of the State. One of our fundamental rights is the State can’t simply deprive us of life, liberty or property on a whim or because they think it’s for the “greater good” without due process.
Something else that I thought was extremely sad about the movie was that after Amanda was found, Helene McCready stated she wouldn’t let Amanda ever see her Aunt Bea McCready (Amy Madigan) again. Bea was the one who used her own money to pay for the detective services of Kenzie because she loved and cared for little Amanda so much. Little did Bea know that her husband Lionel was behind the plot to kidnap Amanda. Lionel planned it out with the detective because of how shitty of a mother his sister Helene was. Doyle was nearing retirement and was the perfect solution (in their minds). To whomever suggested it above, the drug dealers were never actually involved. Kenzie was chasing a red herring, so the detectives had to set up a fake drop to make it look like Amanda died and to shut up the drug dealers for good.
There is no right answer. No matter what, the situation is going to suck and be unfair to someone.