“An initially gripping story with events that eventually become mundane and tiresome, making you wait in agony for some type of redemption”
The premise of the film is two girls go missing after they wander over to one of the girls’ residence up the street during thanksgiving. The police have no suspects or tangible clues except for a suspicious camper van that was parked outside a neighboring house when the girls vanished. Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) is put on the case and it becomes his first real challenge as he has solved every case up to this point.
Hugh Jackman began with a very strong performance as one of the parents of the missing girls. He was very authentic for a father in this situation, and it was very easy to empathize with him. His character development became a bit cliché and then evolved into overzealous. Luckily his heartfelt start made you roll your eyes a bit less as his overacting gradually became irritating. One note-worthy performance, though you only saw him briefly (but heard him throughout), was Paul Dano. He was the main suspect, but portrayed a believable child like innocence that you couldn’t help but feel sorry for.
The running time was an issue as it was over 2 ½ hours. It showcased suspenseful scenes but a lot of the distorted suspicions and the emotional disorder were excessive. The plot could have been much tighter, and since the subject matter is a bit heavy it became unpleasant.
In essence the story was a very elementary allegory of the human spirits transformation in a state of powerlessness. A type of film you would see with your adolescent child and they would be able to discern the meaning of the film half way through.
Film Snob of the Millennials 
Whoa, it really was not your cup of tea. Personally, I enjoyed it a whole lot more, but you are totally correct. It seems Hollywood has had a fascination with longer movies as of late, which is something I do not quite understand.
I read your review on it as well and you were justified in liking the film as many others have. I could see were they were trying to go but it put a bad taste in my mouth in the end.
Good review Charles. It’s a long flick, but the cast is so damn good that I didn’t care after awhile. I was just too busy keeping my eyes on everything these performers were able to do.
Agreed as I said in my review aside from Hugh Jackman getting a little shouty the acting was great. The direction and material was just not so good for them to work with in my opinion
I absolutelt loved this film. My favorite film of 2013. But I could see why other people would dislike it.
I could see why people could like this film, just really wasn’t for me and I had some pet peeves I couldn’t look past
I think this flawed, too, and pacing is one of the problems.
Good review.
I am glad to hear you agree. Not many others share my same viewpoint on this film but I think they could have made a better effort with what they had to work with.
I might still like the flick a touch more than you, mind (I gave it a C+), but I totally agree it could have been better with a tighter focus on character and theme.
Exactly, had a few pet peeves that brought me to a lower grade. Did you notice it was raining heavily at the liquor store scene and the next scene there was a foot of snow on the ground when he was walking home? This is were it began for me and there was many of these types of illogical instances.