Only his second screenplay, Aaron Guzikowski's film is ostensibly about the shattering fallout from a violent father's (Hugh Jackman) search for his missing child and how his actions implicate neighbours Terrence Howard and Viola Davis, and how the case even gets to policeman Jake Gyllenhaal. Though I think in the imprisonment and torture of unproven suspect Paul Dano I read this just as much about Guantanamo / torture of political prisoners. (I find the fact that Dano's character can't say one thing to save himself a stretch of credibility, though my Q disagrees.)
It's a gutty, uncomfort-inducing, long film, with certain plot ellipses (very little on Jackman's dad's suicide; not quite sure how the other suspect fits in - another kidnap victim, I'm guessing), the first collaboration between Villeneuve (Incendies, Sicario) and Roger Deakins, who gives you some great night lighting and a terrific rush to hospital through blurry rain.
Rest of good cast: Maria Bello, Melissa Leo, Wayne Duvall, Dylan Minnette, Sandra Ellis Lafferty. Music by Jóhann Jóhannsson (Sicario, The Theory of Everything), editing by Joel Cox & Gary Roach (Eastwood's films).
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