Genre: Mystery
Director: Gavin O'Connor
Writer: Jack Slipter
Based on the novel by Donato Carrisi
Cast: Oscar Isaac, Sharlto Copley, Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins, Maggie Grace, Catherine Keener, Amanda Peet, Sophia Lillis, Logan Huffman, Charlie Plummer, Brighton Sharbino
Plot: The movie begins in a small mountain village, a girl with red hair, Anna Lou (Sophia Lillis) leaves home on a foggy evening to go to church. The scene moves a few days later when a man who receives a phone call and gets dressed quickly takes his car to go to his studio. He is the psychologist Michael Pills (Richard Jenkins). In his studio there is the famous detective Vogel (Sharlto Copley), one of those who often see each other on TV, in a daze and with blood not on his clothes. The man says he remembers an accident but does not remember what happened. Vogel begins to tell his story. He had arrived in the village to investigate the disappearance of the young Anna Lou, talks to the parents of the missing girl.Anna Lou’s parents are members of a quasi-cult of ultra-conservatives who believe that premarital sex is wrong. So is homosexuality. So are evolution and science in general..The parents think that the disappearance of the daughter is just an act of rebellion, the detective Vogel warns them that soon the small town will be upset In the company of Vogel there is Harvey (Logan Huffman) another young policeman, rather upset about the incident and took several photos in his room and read his diary but without finding interesting things. Detective Vogel warns the parents that soon the small town will be upset by the arrival of many journalists and to make an appeal on TV.Coming out of the house we understand that Vogel is so quirky and unconventional that he harbors an enduring towards DNA, forensics or any other scientific ephemera. He begins to applaud and whistle and many people begin to look out the windows and push the curtains aside to look around. Vogel tells Harvey that this town is full of curious people and if they saw anything about Anna Lou's disappearance they would surely have said it. Vogel speaks with the other policemen and is convinced that it was a kidnapping, although there are no clues and begins to clash with the police in the country because they are not used to work hard during the Christmas period. To support Vogel there is Marta Harding (Amanda Peet), who commands the department of a few inexperienced policemen in the village, while a journalist, Jennifer Smooth (Rosamund Pike), with whom she had heavy quarrels in the past, calls him to have continuous information on the case. Meanwhile we meet the Professor Martin (Oscar Isaac), a charming professor who has moved to the village with his wife Sarah (Maggie Grace) following heavy debts and to restart their relationship following the betrayal of Sarah with another man. At school we see that Anna Lou's classmates talk to the professor about the disgrace of the disappearance of the classmate. The man is kind and understanding and seems rather loved especially by the students. During the recess, a young woman named Lindsay (Brighton Sharbino), a very beautiful and popular girl at the school, approaches Professor Martin and asks if she knows someone who can give him some serious acting lessons and take some pictures. The man says that as a young man he had a certain talent for acting and he could help her. The girl, dressed in a rather provocative way with a rather short purple skirt and a white tank top is happy and hugs him and runs away from her friends while the professor looks at her from behind smiling. The man during the conversation was also given the phone number.Meanwhile, investigations are continuing and there is a young suspect named Matt who has been seen by some people following Anna Lou. Matt (Charlie Plummer) is a lonely boy and often wears a jacket that says "Son of Sam" and names his cat Zodiac. When questioned at his home he is alone and shows a red hooded sweatshirt. We see that he is a rather problematic boy, often looking away at Vogel's questions. Meanwhile, we also see that in addition to his cat Zodiac also has a discovery called Bundy. However, Vogel has another suspect in his head, a man nicknamed "The Mutilator". Vogel is quite obsessed with the case a previous series of crimes against young girls he has tried in the past to resolve by arresting and accusing a local individual suspected of being a serial killer, only to be forced to release him with insufficient evidence. Despite strong evidence against him, the suspect and eventually he was munificently compensated for the unjust imprisonment. "After his arrest, the mutilator's crimes stopped," says Vogel, justifying his search for the suspect. In this case of Anna Lou there is something strange and she has a strange feeling that this old killer could be back in action.
In the evening we see that a memorial has been organized and many friends of Anna Lou leave flowers, candles, teddy bears and other emotional objects in front of the missing girl. There, surrounded by a few colleagues including Harvey, Vogel explains that the murderer will probably take a souvenir from the sanctuary. Shortly after a young man in a hooded sweatshirt steals a stuffed teddy bear and hides it in his jacket and tries to leave but is blocked. It's Matt. During the interrogation, the next morning, Matt has a maniacal need to film everything he sees: his neighbors, the girls, the passers-by and whoever goes to the city. After a bizarre conversation between the two, where Vogel promises Matt fame and fortune in exchange for a confession in an ethically incorrect manner. Matt, however, does not confess,he have got an alibi and delivers various photographs of Anna Lou walking and Vogel carefully watching them realize that a gray car is often parked. Then you see Professor Martin who is parking his gray car near a bar and enters there looking at the guys who are across the street talking and joking with each other. Lindsay is also in the group. The man pulls out his cell phone and tries to send her a message. The girl looks at her cell phone and then puts it in her pocket. At this point Martin sends him another one writing a nice thing and you see that the girl snorts for a moment and looks at the sky. At this point the man goes home a little unnerved. When he returns home he finds his wife a little worried because Vogel and the other policemen are at home. During the questions it is understood that during the evening of the disappearance the professor does not have an alibi that can be verified (he had gone to the camping) and has a wound to the hand on which the professor is rather evasive. Furthermore he is also very evasive on the fact that the his gray car was often near where Anna Lou walked. At this point the man is officially suspected and the next morning everyone in the village looked at him badly and is suspended for safety at school.Various cameras resume Professor Martin and follow Sarah several times and all public opinion and the media are revealed to be certain of his guilt.Sarah always stays with her husband and tries to make her innocence of the media understand, especially Jennifer Smooth.In the evening Vogel has a meeting with Jennifer who has a rather cynical attitude and speaks to Vogel of an old case and in the end he is called Whore by the man and she goes away smiling.Throughout his investigation, Vogel receives various text messages from a mysterious source. The message is always the same: the "He is innocent," Anyway, eventually Vogel gets to contacting the sender: a retired policewoman, Missy Simons (Catherine Keener), in a wheelchair. She has a theory: there is a serial killer on the loose who murders teen girls with red hair, and has been doing so for 30 years and shows various graphs and photographs of crime scenes where you see various red-haired girls have disappeared over the years and in the same modus-operandi.She had called that serial "The Man in the Fog".She says that these quests have obsessed her for years, causing her to lose even her family and friends and making her live alone now. Unfortunately, this theory of this killer was branded as an invention of his and put on the margins of the police due to depression and a subsequent suicide attempt.
At a certain point, Anna Lou's backpack is found in a forest and forensics finds some small blood stains belonging to the professor. Jennifer knows that in the past Vogel had falsified evidence to imprison suspects more easily and in this case he finds out that the same thing happened by putting a small microphone on him. In this case he had succeeded in extracting the professor's DNA from the blindfold that the man had on his wounded hand. With the involvement of the press, the pollution of evidence is unveiled, the professor acquitted and suspicions , a serial killer of red-haired girls who had killed other girls in the past. At this point the professor is released from prison and is later searched by the press making him almost become a hero.Now, the man is seen by the public as a martyr and is invited in many broadcasts and asks for a large sum of money as compensation.Vogel, however, during a TV interview notes a certain clue (a tattoo on the professor's wrist, which is the initial of a boy's name that Anna Lou often wrote in the diary we saw at the beginning of the film) and guesses that Martin could really be the girl's killer. Martin in fact intentionally circulated the clues against him but never leaving any concrete evidence against him, in order to appear in Vogel's eyes as the only possible assassin, which would have led the investigator to do everything lawfully and not frame as in a famous case in the past. And on the other hand it was activated to bring out the theory that instead the murders were of a past serial killer, known as the man of the fog. In a moment of madness Vogel decides to kill Professor Martin and the scene returns to the beginning of the film while talking to the psychiatrist. At this point there is a flashback to what happened that foggy evening. We see Anna, leaving the house, greeting her parents and walking down the street with her backpack. Shortly after we see the professor pretending to look like a kitten. The girl trusts the man despite some initial resistance and gets into the car. Professor Martin, after the girl has got his car, he closes the door and looks around with a disturbing face. Vogel thanks the psychiatrist and calls the agents to be arrested. He is arrested by Marta Harding, almost in tears.
After that we see Dr. Pills, who with his car goes to his house with a tired look for a rather intense day at work. He enters the house, caresses his dog and watches his wife sleeping in the bedroom smiling. At this point he goes into the garage and opens a locker where there is an old metal box inside, opens it and looks inside. Inside there are six small locks of red hair. Then he closes this box and puts it back in place with a thoughtful face. Turn off the light and climb the stairs slowly to go to sleep.
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