I'd like this movie more if it was more believable

Rating: 8/10 (23 September 2013)

Haven't read it, but probably the book was better. So much moral complexity and layer upon layer of conspiracies cannot be done in 110 minutes, especially when it's an often deliberate, dramatic 110 minutes.
55 minutes into the movie (halfway mark), kidnapped girl is supposedly drowned. Body is never found. We know that obviously there is something more to this; and we're willing to bet that she is still alive, since this movie is obviously nowhere near done. We just don't know where this could possibly be headed.
Another 20-25 minutes pass and we discover that girl's uncle and Ed Harris have something to do with it. Seems they did it for the money. Hrm OK sure, a bit of a stretch, especially since the movie is ending soon.
Then bam! 10 minutes later, we're slammed with the jaw dropping revelation that ex police chief Morgan Freeman had something to do with it. About 5 more minutes before everything is clarified to us. Apparently uncle, Ed Harris, and Morgan Freeman were good guys trying to do the good thing and had set up this *massive* conspiracy to rescue this particular little girl from her mother.
Then just another 10-15 minutes to mull it over and the movie ends.
Altogether this movie was very well done, but the *massive* conspiracy at the end was just too much of a stretch. If it's not a superhero or fantasy movie, you need to have at least a little bit of plausibility.
Couple of cops in Boston manufacturing a gigantic, insanely complicated conspiracy to save a girl from her crack-addicted mother? When
(i) there is great uncertainty about how the girl will turn out (probably the majority of kids whose parents are crack addicts turn out fine);
(ii) there are, besides kidnapping a girl and manufacturing a conspiracy, a quadrillion other options to making sure the daughter of a crack addict turns out OK--
(a) call Social Services, as boy detective suggested;
(b) offer to adopt the kid from the mom;
(c) offer to take care of the kid at least occasionally if the mom doesn't want to give her up;
(d) keep a vigilant eye on the kid at all times
(e) etc etc etc.