BEFORE: I couldn't really link anywhere directly from "Alex Cross" - my method is to scan down each actor's IMDB listing, looking for other films on my watchlist, and this time, nada.
But I'm not counting it as a dead end, because I can indirectly link to this one - both Tyler Perry from "Alex Cross" and Viola Davis were on-screen together in Tyler Perry's "Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail, a Tyler Perry Production, based on the novel by Tyler Perry".
THE PLOT: When Keller Dover's daughter and her friend go missing, he takes matters into his own hands as the police pursue multiple leads and the pressure mounts.
AFTER: Louis CK just did a funny but shocking monologue on SNL about pedophiles - if you haven't seen it, go watch that and then come back here, and we can proceed. But it applies here, because it's all about how people absolutely hate pedophiles, and want to shun them and even kill them, but even though pedophiles know this, they molest kids anyway. So it MUST feel amazing, because they still keep doing it. Well, it was funny when Louis CK said it.
I'm trying to get some statistics on how many children go missing each year in this country, and I can't get a clear number. The last year with statistics available is 2002? What the hell? Do we not even have the resources to COUNT the number of missing children in the last 13 years? I think I'm starting to see the problem - unless everyone is busy looking for missing kids instead of counting the number of cases, which is about the only explanation I'll accept at this point. I fear that even searching for this statistic has probably put me on a watchlist somewhere. Anyway, estimates for the number of missing children each year run as high as 800,000 - of which 97% are recovered. That leaves 24,000 kids NOT recovered each year, which seems either scary-high or scary-real.
This film is about a father of a missing girl who decides that the police aren't doing enough, and convinces himself that a cleared suspect knows more than he's letting on, so in what seems like poetic justice he becomes a kidnapper himself. It's unfortunate that an amateur vigilante would be unable to tell the difference between someone not revealing information they know and them not knowing the information in the first place, so a downward spiral of coercion begins.
This creates a dilemma I'll call "Schrodinger's killer" - without knowing for sure, he both did and didn't do it. But you can't have it both ways, ultimately the film needs to pick one of these things. There's no physical evidence, but plenty of circumstantial evidence - this is a tough line to walk. But it feeds the dilemma as long as neither theory is proven correct - still, I feel the film could have been trimmed somewhere to be shorter than 2 1/2 hours.
At the same time, other leads are pursued by a detective who apparently never heard the words "search warrant" before - yeah, I realize there are two missing girls and time is of the essence, but we still have laws in this country, and if he can catch their kidnapper or killer, doesn't he want them to be convicted properly, without the case being thrown out on a technicality?
I can't decide if this was a case of a screenwriter painting himself into a corner, or if it's more like they got the ball to the 1-yard line and couldn't score a touchdown, but either way, I felt like the ending of the film was off. I won't talk directly about it, but even though the film kept me guessing almost all the way through, I don't think the ending here presented a valid payoff. Everything didn't really come together until I read the full plot description on Wikipedia, and even then I had to bring something to the film that wasn't evident at first.
Also starring Hugh Jackman (last seen in "Someone Like You"), Jake Gyllenhaal (last seen in "Zodiac"), Terrence Howard (last seen in "The Butler"), Maria Bello (last seen in "Grown Ups 2"), Melissa Leo (last seen in "The Angriest Man in Brooklyn"), Paul Dano (last seen in "Ruby Sparks"), Dylan Minette, Zoe Soul, Len Cariou.
RATING: 6 out of 10 candlelight vigils
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