Prisoners

Keller Dover ( Hugh Jackman ) , a deeply religious man who runs a failing carpentry business , attending a Thanksgiving dinner with his family in the house of a neighbor and family friends birches . Families' six year old daughters, Anna Dover and Joy Birch, go for a walk outside with their older siblings, Ralph Dover and Elizabeth Birch . Children must forcefully pulled away from a parked motor home with his siblings when they start to climb on it. After dinner , the younger daughters leaving to go back to Anna's house to get her whistle, she is supposed to wear at all times, but they will never return. After a police chase , the RV was found parked outside a gas station next to a wooded area. When Detective Loki ( Jake Gyllenhaal ) , who leads the case, go to confront RV drivers , Alex Jones (Paul Dano ) , Alex panics , trying to rush off and crashing into trees. Alex brought in for questioning, but it turns out he has the IQ of a 10 year old and rarely speaks . RV shows no forensic evidence suggests girls with raped into it, and Alex low intelligence means that he could have covered up such evidence .  

Although polygraph test by him proves compelling because of his low IQ , and he repeatedly denied ever having seen the children. Detective Loki goes to see Alex 's aunt , Holly Jones (Melissa Leo ) , who raised him with his uncle after his parents died when he was six . Alex 's uncle left home a few years ago after a domestic dispute with his aunt. Alex spends most nights sleeping in the RV and do not have many things. Since the police can not find evidence against Alex, he was released two days. Keller attacking him in a parking lot where he says Alex tells him , " They just cried when I left them. " While no one is close enough to hear this to confirm, but he takes it as a proof that Alex took the girls .

That night, Keller abducts Alex at gunpoint while walking the dog , and imprison him in an abandoned , run-down apartment building that his father owned . With the reluctant help of Joy 's father , Franklin Birch ( Terrence Howard) , hitting Alex Keller repeated for days for information. Overwhelmed by guilt, Franklin tells his wife Nancy ( Viola Davis) what they have done and give her to see Alex. While talking to him , she looses Alex and he's trying to escape. This is forcing Keller to build a wall around a tub , where he locks Alex. It has no light except a small PVC tube talk - holes, and Keller can torture Alex with both scalding and freezing water . At this point, the Birches decide they can not participate anymore, but they do not stop Keller. Detective Loki begins to tail Keller after hearing that Alex disappeared , and eventually finds apartment complex , though he discovers Alex.
During the day Alex tortured, track Detective Loki other joints. While investigating sex offenders in the area, he discovers that Father Patrick Dunn has a long - dead body in his basement . Father Dunn claims he did not know who the man was, but that in a confession the man boasted about killing sixteen children and even admitted to having a family dispute . Pastor admits he convinced the man to come to his house , where he killed him to " save the children " , and has been arrested for the crime. During a candlelight vigil for the missing girls , letters Detective Loki a man acting suspicious , but loses him in a chase. Subsequent scenes show to break into Dover and birch home, even if it is not revealed what he was doing there. Keller wife hear the window open when you break it in, but never sees him , and think Anna had come back . Detective Loki writes down her statement about someone coming in through the window. After a sketch of the man shown on the news, reports a department store clerk , and he says he will from time to time to investigate children's mannequins and buy baby clothes. The man turns out to be Bob Taylor when the clerk gives Loki the man's license plate to track him. Loki confronts Taylor in his home and finds that the walls are covered with drawings of intricate mazes. In a back room , locked boxes filled with maze books, venomous snakes and bloody children's clothing was discovered . Both Dover and birches identify clothing belonging to their children from the drawers , and Taylor confesses to killing them. Keller begins to regret his actions against Alex, but still think Alex might know where the bodies are . Alex mentions a clue to find them in a maze. Keller goes to the Jones home to " excuse " to Holly to attack Alex at the police station , but in reality , he is there to judge her reaction when he mentions that he has dreams of Anna in a maze.
To believe that there is a small chance that the children might still be alive, beats Loki Taylor during interrogation , but Taylor manages to take one of the officers pistol from his belt and commit suicide . Blood on baby clothes later found to be pig's blood , and when you look back at Keller wife's statement on the window, Loki realizes that Taylor had stolen clothes from the girls' room. Taylor turns out to be a false killer copying a book titled " The Invisible Man " , which clearly presents mazes , especially a circular maze (as seen in " O " in " Prisoners " logo) as Taylor pulled in custody. Days later , the Joy Birch found drugged and is in hospital , but Anna is still missing. In her drugged state , Joy rambles that Keller was there, giving the audience the impression that Keller is something in it. Keller rushes out that Loki chasing him. Loki lose him, but heads to the apartment complex and discovers the imprisoned Alex.
Keller goes to Hollywood , realize that this is where Joy had heard him . Holly holds him at gunpoint , forcing him to consume the same sedative used to poison Anna and Joy. She reveals that she and her husband had been religious people , as Keller, until their son died of cancer at a young age. They decided that in spite of God by making children disappear without a trace of turning their parents into demons , as evidenced by what Keller had become. Alex was the first child that they were kidnapped and raised him as his own son. Holly and her husband continued to kill until he ran away from home one day. From that point, she stopped in principle that she needed his help. But when Alex gave Anna and Joy a ride for her pleasure, she found her chance to do it again , and it did Keller realize that Alex never hurt the girls. Holly dumps Keller (now handcuffs ) in a hole hidden under a functional car that appear broken. This pit where she had done all the kidnapped children "disappear" . However , she mentions having moved Anna and joy into the house when the police started to look around, which is what gets joy to eventually escape. In the pit , Keller finds his daughter 's whistle and begins to try to convert the demon he had become.
Loki goes to Holly 's house to talk about Alex discovered. He goes into when she did not respond, and realizes that her husband was dead in Father Dunn's basement when he sees a picture of him wearing the same necklace as the deceased. He confronts Holly as she injects Anna with cyanide. The two push each other , Loki is hurt, but Holly is killed. He rushes Anna to the hospital and she is saved. Days later , it is revealed that Keller is still missing and presumed to be on the run to avoid jail time for their crimes to Alex . Loki promises his wife that he will find him. When searching through the newspaper , it is revealed that Alex is actually the boy who was kidnapped from his mother Loki visited earlier in the film. Loki is later shown with a team digs Holly farm remains, but the cold weather dramatically slowing the search. After the team leaves , is Loki alone , apparently thinking Keller's whereabouts . He hears a faint whistle, but feels it 's his imagination. However, keep whistleblowing and Loki turning investigation and the film ends .