Could have been good - and turns into a complete failure

Rating: 2/10 (28 March 2016)

"Prisoners" might be the best example for a movie, that could have been really good, but then fails in every single way and leaves you behind with a mix of anger, irritation and sheer disappointment. What could have been a good movie with interesting ideas, great actors and difficult moral questions turns into a boring and annoying peace of Hollywood-average-garbage by trying to satisfy a Hollywood-average-audience, who expect every story to turn into a fluffy fairy tale with simple answers, happy endings and the destruction of evil... All proceedings after the first half of the movie are so forced and stupid and inconsistent with the whole storyline, they just lead you to face palm yourself again and again and again.
What did upset me the most - beside the incredible incompetence of the on-screen-police and the fact that no one in the movie seems to give a sh** about the fate of Alex and Bob, who were victims just like the two girls - were the following points:
1) Both Keller and Detective Loki try to reach their goal by using brute force without searching for alternatives.
°Real-life-consequence: Every innocent victim will die: The young men - directly or indirectly - by the hands of Keller/Loki, the girls, because no one ever got the idea to ask a psychologist to TALK to the two obviously mentally ill/disordered boys to find an answer. Instead they are tortured or lead into suicide, the only chance to find a trace gets literally smashed, which gives the real kidnapper enough time to accomplish her work. (Which is even more annoying, after Loki must have recognized, that he came furthest with cool-headed investigation, while his fit of rage did ruin everything)
°Prisoners/Hollywood-consequence: That's alright, because in the end everything will be fine, no matter what you do, because you are the good guy. Just sit down and relax, god and destiny will fix everything for you and turn the world into a lollipop-sky-loft with cute little rainbow-unicorns.
2) Alex, a mentally ill, traumatized and, as we see, innocent boy, is tortured and violated in the most brutal way, with heat, frost, darkness, his head is nearly smashed and who knows what other bodily parts,too.
°RLC: If lucky, Alex will die by the terrible injuries or a following inflammation, as he had no water, no food and the old house was full of dirt. In any case he will keep long-term damages, not only physically, he is now more traumatized than ever before. Almoust certainly he is going to kill himself sooner or later.
°P/HC: That's alright, just put an article into a newspaper about a wonderful family-reunion, so the audience will know, he will live happily ever after - you know, with the rainbow-unicorns I mentioned before.
3) Keller didn't achieve anything by his outrage, except leaving his family alone in their fear and grief, (nearly) killing an innocent boy, playing into the hands of kidnapper Holly Jones by keeping away Alex, who could have given a real clue with the real treatment, and turning himself into a victim of evil Holly by acting careless and imprudent.
°RLC: Keller will die in that hole in the belief, that his daughter is dead - which will happen with the utmost probability. Even if he escaped, his family would turn away from him (if his wife did not die accidentally of an overdose of sleeping pills before, which is most likely), because he did not care about them all the time, brought his daughter into great danger and turned himself into a monster by violating a victim like his own daughter without any effect. He will go to jail for that - just like his two friends, whose daughter will then have no parents anymore, just like Anna is left behind with an imprisoned father, a disillusioned brother and a mother addicted to pills.
°P/HC: That doesn't matter, because you're meant to be the good guy, and good guys always get saved in the end, and if anybody had a doubt about the fact, that you're the good guy, your wife will point it out loudly and proudly for the audience once more and explain, that you just did what you had to do (which does not make any sense at all, because his actions lead into nothing), that everything will be alright now and that you will be forgiven for everything.
It was an interesting idea for a movie to ask the question: How far would you go to save someone you love, and what if it turns you into a more awful monster than the one you are chasing? Because in the end there is not much difference between Holly and Keller and between what they are willing to do to innocent children. The main character has done everything wrong and his actions had to be leading into a dark and deep abyss - including the death of his daughter, the death of Alex, the imprisoning of his friends, maybe the accidentally suicide of his wife and, not to forget, his own death. Instead the moral of this story is, that the end always justifies the means, torture and witch hunt are alright, no matter against whom, when you're the good guy, as who you are above reproach. In my opinion this movie is a complete failure, because the creators were too scared or too contracted (or too scared of a contracted audience) to bring their storyline to an adequate ending.