Can We Ever Be Completely Safe from Demoniacs?

Rating: 7/10 (22 November 2016)

Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman), his wife Grace (Maria Bello), and two children enjoy a nice Thanksgiving dinner at the house of their rural and friendly neighbors, the Birches (Franklin = Terrence Howard, Nancy = Viola Davis, and two children). After the meal the two younger girls of each family – 6 year-old Anna Keller (Erin Garasimovich) and 7 year-old Joy Birch (Kyla-Drew) – go outside to play. When they do not return, the two families conduct a fruitless search. The only clue is an old and unfamiliar RV that was parked nearby. Police are called.
Dining alone in a restaurant, Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) is summoned. While the police are searching, they spot the RV parked close by. The creepy, spectacled driver, Alex Jones (Paul Dano), sees them and tries to flee but smashes his vehicle. When Alex is taken to a police station, it is soon discovered that he is none too bright; in fact, his IQ is that of a 10 year-old. On his own he could never have staged the crime and has few facts to provide. His aunt Holly Jones (Melissa Leo) provides limited details, saying that Alex has never been in trouble. Forensics on the RV reveals no information about the two missing girls. Area searches reveal nothing. As the girls are not found, tension obviously develops between the Dovers and Loki, who does his best. Checking a clue listing, Loki goes to the house of a defrocked and alcoholic priest, Father Patrick Dunn (Len Cariou). Loki discovers a mummified body in the basement with a circle maze medal necklace. Father Dunn says that he doesn't know anything about the man except that he had confessed to murdering 16 children, and threatened more harm. To save the children, the priest lured the man to his residence and dispatched him. Loki arrests the ex-priest. When Loki visits the Jones' house, Alex remains quiet.
When Alex is released for insufficient evidence, Keller is so furious that he physically attacks him in the parking lot outside the police station. Alex says, "They didn't cry until I left them." No one else hears this comment. Keller is arrested but quickly released. When Grace emotionally collapses, Keller takes the law into his own hands by kidnapping Alex, holding him hostage, and driving him to an old, abandoned apartment building that his father once owned. At first Alex is tied to a radiator. Later he is restrained inside a plywood-wall (around a shower) that Keller has constructed. (Keller is a self-employed contractor engaging in home remodeling and repairing.) When Keller shows Franklin what he has done, the latter is mortified. But Keller is so desperate that he continues to beat on Alex for information.
Meanwhile the mummified corpse remains unidentified by the police. When a candlelight vigil for the two missing girls is held by neighbors, Detective Loki spots a shadowy character who manages to escape after a foot chase. But Loki has garnered enough information to have a sketch made of the suspect. The real break occurs after a young saleslady at a children's discount outlet recognizes the sketch on TV. She tells Loki that the strange man shops weekly for variously-sized children's clothing. She has no other detail, but later calls Loki to say that the suspect returned, and she has his license plate number. Loki tracks down the stranger, Bob Taylor (David Dastmalchian). He is shortly arrested while bloodied children's clothing is found at his residence. At first it appears that Taylor has murdered the girls. In confinement at the station, he is asked to draw a map of the girls' whereabouts, but draws a circle maze instead. Then, in a bizarre confrontation, Taylor grabs a police gun and kills himself. Loki was not over his disappointment when the lab calls to say that only pigs' blood was found on the girls' clothing. Taylor was not a murderer, just a copycat. (While Taylor was alive he had sneaked into the Dover residence and stolen some clothing.) Meanwhile Keller is still working on Alex, and when he sees him next Alex says that the two girls are "in a maze." By the way, doesn't Alex at least know right from wrong? Anyway, Keller again visits Holly, who discloses some background involving Alex.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
Joy Birch is found alive in a drugged state after she had inexplicably escaped. When Keller addresses her in the hospital, Joy responds, "You were there." Keller dashes away and drives to Holly's. Loki also leaves, but drives to the abandoned building instead. Keller tells Holly that he now knows that the missing girls were there. She whips out a gun and makes him drink a sedative concoction. Holly states that after her son died of cancer she and her now-missing husband (killed by Dunn) waged a war against God by kidnapping children and killing them. They abducted Alex, whose real name is Barry Millard. These actions were meant to turn parents into demons, as Keller is. Holly forces him to enter into a deep hole where Anna had been kept and covers it. Keller finds Anna's red emergency whistle.
Loki is ordered to visit Holly and explain that Alex has been found. As he arrives Holly is absorbed in applying a deadly hypodermic needle into unconscious Anna's arm. Before she does so, she wheels about and wounds Loki in the head; he shoots and kills her. In a mad rush, the embattled detective drives Anna to the hospital in time. The next scene shows Loki recovering on a hospital bed and reading a newspaper headline that Alex has been reunited with his family after 26 years. Keller is still missing.
While a supervised team is excavating the Jones property for bodies, Loki hears the sound of an emergency whistle emanating from the hole where Keller is confined. The credits appear. In summary, despite plot holes, this is an entertaining movie with good acting.