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A Haitian pimp/drug dealer clutches his polished pistol, hissing these words between drags on a joint:

If that girl's only hope is you, then I pray for her, 'cause she gone, baby. . . . Gone.

It's one of the many tense scenes from first-time director Ben Affleck's "Gone Baby Gone." I quote the scary gangster because:

• It's a fantastic line of dialogue that gives a good sense of the film's story.

• It justifies an awful title that brings to mind Gnarls Barkley's recent poppy-doody hit "Gone Daddy Gone."

• It's a fine example of the unfiltered grit in a violent and challenging film that will absolutely surprise you.

Affleck isn't a great director, but he will be.

"Gone Baby Gone" has a strange pace - halfway through, I genuinely thought it was over. It slows to a crawl at awkward moments, and there's an unnecessary voice-over that detracts from the experience.

But Affleck has a remarkable eye for mise-en-scène, bringing lower-class Boston uniquely to life. The stone-gray neighborhood is like a character in itself. Peripheral actors are, mostly, ugly. They talk and move in a beat-down way that suggests angry years of scraping by and populate bars that are dingy, with bad lighting. Most every building is in desperate need of, at least, a fresh coat of paint. And you can practically smell the Miller High Life aerating some scenes. Movies don't feel this real very often.

Affleck, that clever fellow, wrote the script, as well, based on a novel by Dennis Lehane (who also penned "Mystic River"). The plot concerns the kidnapping of a 4-year-old named Amanda. The girl's aunt, desperate for all the help she can get, hires private investigator Patrick Kenzie (Affleck's brother Casey) and his partner/girlfriend, Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan), to aid the search.

Local authorities, particularly Officer Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman), at first aren't keen on Kenzie's meddling. Doyle explains that when kidnapping cases aren't solved in the first day, there's a 90 percent chance the child won't be found. Kenzie joins the search on Day 3.

But he knows the neighborhood, having grown up there. Kenzie navigates through drug dealers, tough guys and broken-down women, uncovering seedy details in the case concerning drugs and - naturally - a duffel bag stuffed with cash.

The plot is more complicated than it sounds - cops, gangsters, pedophiles and Amanda's family all play a role. And Kenzie's relationship with Angie becomes strained as they get closer to (or further from - they don't know) the truth about the kidnapping.

"Gone Baby Gone" has fistfights, bloody shootouts and remarkably tense exchanges. The film's best moment, though, comes at the end and concerns a profound choice I won't go into here. See it and you'll find yourself wondering what you would do in these characters' shoes. Moral ambiguity is a tough device to get right, but this movie nails it.