Typically when I watch a movie, I like it to leave room for discussion. The film is a main course; the discussion is dessert.

Ben Affleck's "Gone Baby Gone" leaves the viewer with too much of the latter without enough of the former. Yes, it was well done. It was a top-notch crime procedural although, in parts, it felt like it could have been a TV movie.

Also, Amy Ryan and Titus Welliver had breakout roles, earning the former an Oscar nomination. Heavy praise was heaped upon Casey Affleck, but I thought it was mildly undeserved and would have liked to have seen Mark Wahlberg or Matt Damon get the part of Patrick Kenzie, a private investigator who stumbles into a missing child investigation with his partner-girlfriend, played by Michelle Monaghan.

If you haven't seen this film and would like to not have the ending SPOILED for you, go now.

*****

How the movie ends: A corrupt police chief, played by Morgan Freeman, arranged the kidnapping of the little girl (Amanda McCready), played by Madeline O'Brien in part because he lost his own child some years back and in part because he believed he could give the 4 year-old a better life.

The girl's mother, played by Ryan, is a drug-abusing whore of sorts. She leaves the girl at home alone, and by all rights should have the child taken away by social services.

But in a stunning development, the relationship between Monaghan's character and Affleck's ends because he decides the appropriate thing to do is return the kid to the mother. Monaghan insists that Affleck allow the toddler to stay with Freeman because the girl "is clearly happier with him."

This really surprised me because I feel strongly, very strongly, that Affleck did the right thing here. Hell, I commented to somebody that I wouldn't have been able to continue a romantic relationship with Monaghan's character after that on principle. Not only was it the legalistically proper thing for Affleck to do (turn in the police chief), it was the morally proper thing also.

Think about the slippery slope here.

I don't think most of us would approve of a parent taking drugs in front of a kid or abandoning a child to do those things. However, what other dilemma might allow us to slide this slope to the pits of moralistic hell? How about saving a child from two smoker parents, a decision that might keep the child's lungs fresh? How about arranging for a kidnapping to save a child from a father who spanks her? Some folks are adamant that spanking is abuse.

I think they are insane. However, these folks exist.

Could we approve of an "arranged kidnapping" in the event of obese parents, saving the child from the trauma of not only their parents' likely premature death but also from a lifetime of poor eating habits?

Can we "reappropriate" children to parents based on wealth, faith, etc?

Based on what little I know about philosophy, Affleck's character exercised what's called the "categorical imperative." I had to look this up, but Monaghan exercised what's called "consequentialist" reasoning, which is an ethical stance that values the result of a situation more than it does whether or not the action is right or wrong.

Perhaps I'm a weirdo, but while results are important, the morally proper thing to do is more important.

And it disturbs me just a little that, I suspect, most people think Affleck's character did the wrong thing.

Good movie, not great. I'll give it a hearty B+.

Now, what did YOU think?