First of all this film attempts to do what other films like The Deep End of the Ocean or Ransom or even the latest one Hallie Berry's The Call did. It even has a Mystic River vibe to it for sure however all those films were better. For starters the good; great cast no doubt about that and thank god finally Hugh Jackman IS NOT WOLVERINE! When you see an actor play the same character so much they might as well be on a TV series so it was nice to see him do something else.

You got Terrence Howard, Viola Davis, Maria Bello and Paul Dano who's come so far since the silent older bro. in Little Miss Sunshine. I will add though that Hugh's performance didn't come close to Sean Penn in Mystic River. However the only one i had a problem with was Jake Gyllenhal. This was not one of his better performances and i didn't too much like his character.

He reminded me of Brad Pitt in Seven; too headstrong, impatient and not that great a detective. Definitely could've had more of a detective Stabler (L&O SVU) type character (someone with kids). As far as the story goes it was a hot mess. I mean half the time we're following the detective around-not nearly enough parents POV to get the right emotion and then half the crap didn't make any sense with that creepy dude who offed himself.

I really didn't think those scenes were that relevant and then the motives of the actual abductor didn't make sense but that doesn't matter cause half the crazy crap people do in real life doesn't make sense. I just felt this movie was built up too much when there's plenty of movies like it that were done better.