Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) the father of the girl will not just sit and wait for other people to find his precious daughter. He will step outside legal boundaries on his pursuit of the light of his life, Taken style. But unlike Taken we will actually see the bleeding bruises of the people at the end of his fists and the scars his knuckles bear after such savage "righteous" beatings.

                 While Keller uses his muscles to find answers Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) forces his brain and gut to guide him in the right direction trying not to step out of the path of the righteous, but such path may take too long and make him arrive too late, Loki knows this and it weighs on his shoulders, it is of no help that the damaged parents dump their guilt and fear on him. The only character that hasn’t even met the missing girls carries the heaviest cross in the film.

                 Jake Gyllenhaal gives a brother performance to the one he did on Zodiac (the first conversation he carries on screen involves the Chinese zodiac as well as having the Greek zodiac tattooed on his fingers) a film considered amongst the best of last decade, I believe an Oscar nod is in order this time.

                The rest of the characters take full advantage of their screen time by adding the necessary obstacles and support to the main players while playing off stereotype breaking roles, the most dynamic of these being Franklin and Nancy Birch (Terrence Howard and Viola Davis), the parents of the other missing girl. They both feed and repress Keller's way of violent justice.

                 Keller and Loki's opposing methods constitute the two main kinds of mainstream thrillers yet it feels like no other one you've ever seen.

4.5/5 stars