Too superficial; Inconsistent characters.

Rating: 4/10 (16 April 2014)

I feel like the ethical thing to do would be to give this movie 1 or 2 stars, to offset the undeservedly high rating it enjoys in IMDb. But I'll stick to 4.
I was happy to see that I wasn't a complete outlier in feeling so outraged by this movie's popularity that I felt the need to write a review.
Apart from Hugh Jackman's brilliant performance (and Jake's was pretty good too), and the fact of the movie's subject - exploring the utilitarian morality of whether torture is ever justified as a means to an end - there isn't really much else that's even remotely praiseworthy.
Most annoying to me was how inconsistent the characters were - Alex has the 'IQ of a 10-year old', but manages to drive around fine in his RV, lie to the police officers that he does not know the girls, and yet again, he is playful(and prepared) enough to mutter "they didn't cry until I left" when Keller suddenly confronts him! He endures days of torture for no apparent reason before talking about 'mazes'. He randomly strangles his dog while taking it for a walk, and his helplessness suddenly melts away when he attacks Nancy and Keller with a carefully selected shard of glass during his torture!
I was also led to believe that this was an Argo-like nail-biting movie. It isn't. I watched this at home and I managed to fast forward a few seconds every now and then because there was no action going on and the director did not even give us anything to chew on during those moments of inactivity.
The characters are also way too superficial for my liking. Gyllenhaal plays an insomniac work-obsessed good cop who is always going to scary places all by himself. But that's all we know about him - nothing else of who he is or why he does what he does.
And the last one may be because of my lack of a sufficient understanding of American life, but I simply don't get how so many weird f***s like Alex, his mom, and the snake guy manage to eke out a living to maintain a house and a car while pursuing their creepy 'hobbies'.
Lately I've noticed a slew of movies that for some odd reason enjoy an unusually high rating of 8+ on IMDb and then turn out to be complete trash...it's disappointing!