Almost perfect gripping drama

Rating: 9/10 (27 March 2014)

Every parent's worst nightmare is losing a child in any possible way that it might happen. Here, Hugh Jackman, Elizabeth Banks, Terence Howard and Viola Davis play two pair of parents whose youngest children vanish during a thanksgiving get-together. Each pair's eldest kids then tell their parents and detectives that they have spotted a camper parked outside earlier and that their siblings tried to play on it but they stopped them and thus begins a statewide search for the two best friends. The horrific emotional toll of the two missing children pushes each parent to the brink of insanity as they stop at nothing to make sure that their children are found alive. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as the lead detective hell bent on bringing the children home and his painstaking investigation as well as Jackman's vigilantism help unravel the small town's deepest darkest secrets and changes all their lives forever. At 153 minutes, you will feel the length of this film but it is with due cause that it is that long. Melissa Leo rounds out the cast of stellar performers.