In Eastwoods hands this was probably a straight 10..

Rating: 8/10 (11 October 2015)

This movie has it almost all, so I don't go into that. Affleck is an extremely gifted director. My title looks like an offense to him. Sorry. I just mean that the story misses a key-component. While watching this movie, Clint Eastwood came to mind. If he would have read the script, he probably would have said that something is missing in the very structure of the script, which would damage the ending.
The main character is a hunted detective. He has a temper problem, he grew up in violence. He has loose hands and an arrogant side to his person. Why? Well, there we go: we never learn. Does it really matter that we don't learn? Well, not in the beginning, or, in a movie that completely focuses on the crime. And yes, in the beginning the story seems to be about abduction of a kid. But when the story evolves i'm starting to interest myself for the detective. Why? Well, wihle the story evolves and unfolds twister after twister our detective keeps on struggling with his character. His girlfriend is notably restrained. Her silence is like a scream for answers. So script-wise that smells like a psychological subplot, doesn't it? Being a Eastwood-lover - especially his last great movies - i'm waiting for a sub-story to come to surface which give the movie a kick into the psychological drama that is in fact going on here. But our hunted detective just continues to be his hunted self..... When is this gap of information damaging the story? When the main-character makes a hard-to-swallow decision - were no other then his back-ground story could explain, why he does that. It is then that I realize i watch a half finished script.
Were the story of an abducted child could have changed into the real story - the resolution of a tormented main-character - i'm left with a very unsatisfied and unexplainable ending.
Nevertheless: an 8. Because it is on all other levels a really great film!!