Extremely promising, great potential BUT ultimately very disappointing and unbelievable.

Rating: 4/10 (27 December 2013)

At the start this seemed a very interesting film on a powerful subject with suspense beginning to build. The cinematography and editing were good. I found Jackman very good indeed in the lead role with his reaction to the circumstances being suitably moving, Dano was excellent and other actors were generally good. There were suspenseful scenes and mystery keeping some interest in the outcomes along the way (these aspects give my 5/10 rating rather than any lower as I do not react like so many reviewers who rate a film as 1/10 just because something in it annoyed them) but the film fell apart and totally let me down in many ways. I therefore cannot agree and am surprised with the rating of 8.1/10 and a place in imdb's top 250 films which it currently holds.
Firstly the inept police work which is jarring and seems unbelievable. First the cop (Gyllenhaal) does not try to shoot out the tyres of the escaping suspects motor home. He then has awful questioning technique, alienating his interviewees whilst failing to extract ANY information or insight whatsoever. He never calls for support or even informs other police of his whereabouts even in clearly life threatening circumstances! In fact he appears to be a one-man police force with no partners or backup at all. He gets every decision and judgement call completely wrong, failing to work out even the most obvious clues. He does not spot a maze necklace on a dead body or notice that link to mazes later on until he accidentally sees a photo of the body when throwing a tantrum. He does not see through any of the suspects or connect any parts of the puzzle until it is almost too late. No search is done of the house opposite the girls disappearance site or the grounds right outside the main suspects house and all searches that are carried out are VERY poor, slow and superficial. He searches Jackman's old house without a warrant. No surveillance is done of the parents (who would always be suspected) until Jackman has already had time to kidnap the suspect. No surveillance is even done of the released main suspect, who is as a result kidnapped by Jackman, but could just as easily gone off and murdered the kidnap victims!!!. Gyllenhaal's cop lets another suspect run away in a straightforward foot chase when he could easily have caught him or shot him in the leg. He even allows a suspect to shoot himself in the interview room!!!!
The brainless portrayal of this cop is MASSIVELY at odds with the claim that this cop is a 'supercop' who has NEVER failed to solve a case! I do not expect documentary style police work but while it is possible for any police force or police officer to work in such a crap way I would then expect the film to portray it as bad police work rather than portraying him as a good, successful officer etc. He even ends up driving whilst injured in a ridiculously unnecessarily dangerous manner, risking the child, himself and many members of the public after allowing the child to be drugged due to his slowness and ineptitude and is hailed a HERO for this! Gyllenhall also plays the part in a blank, cold manner which also does not inspire any empathy with the character.
On top of that various other unbelievable actions are taken by other characters: WHY would Jackman (a fit, strong man) go along with the orders of an old feeble woman, drinking the drug when she tells him and walking at gunpoint to certain captivity or death? She stands about six inches behind him at roughly his shoulder/elbow height as he dutifully marches to a hole in the ground. ANYONE in his position would elbow the old bitch in the face or jump her at one of the numerous opportunities such as when she first answers the door! His reactions would be FAR faster than hers!
WHY would all 3 apparently good decent parents go along with the torture of a suspect so easily changing from good gentle folk into hardened accomplices or perpetrators of torture?
HOW would the formerly kidnapped and supposedly slow witted boy be a cold, calculating, expert break-in man, happy and able to steal victims clothes under parents noses and escaping capture by the 'great' cop in a chase.
WHY ON EARTH would the evil kidnapper push a full syringe of some deadly substance into the kidnapped girl only to inject just a small amount of the substance into her?!! She wanted to kill her before being killed herself so it is ludicrous that she would carefully remove the syringe with over half the liquid still in the syringe! These aspects are film-making at its worst! This by the director of other superb films who even in this film has some clear abilities to do brilliant work. What was Villeneuve doing allowing the implausible turns of events and why is this film so highly rated? I am confused!
On top of this, rather than suspense it was more and more frustrating and infuriating as numerous red-herrings, badly thought through motives and twists plus incomplete and unexplained story arcs ruined the film bringing it to a very unsatisfactory conclusion. WHAT was the motivation/payoff for the kidnappers? The religious reasons given are flimsy and unconvincing. A sexual or sadistic motive would have been easily believable, this one was not executed properly at all. WHY and HOW would a feeble old lady continue her 'crusade' so successfully after her husbands disappearance? WHY was one boy kept as a 'son' while all others were killed? WHAT is the escaped boy/man doing acting as if he is aiding/involved in subsequent kidnappings? WHY would the paedophile priest murder the kidnapper/murderer? WHY would the kidnapper keep the victims alive if the purpose was just to kill them not abuse, torture or ransom them?!
It is infuriating that a film with good ingredients and production values visually apparent throws it all away with such pathetically badly thought through and unprofessional writing and directing! The dialogue was also fashionably and annoyingly inaudible on many occasions. VERY disappointing film!! Taken as purely an entertainment with your brain disengaged and enjoying what good there is (acting, visual flair, gritty subject matter) it is OK but there are far too many issues to be any better than 4/10 or 5/10 at most.