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During Thanksgiving, Keller Dover, his Wife Grace and their children Ralph and Anna, attend the home of their neighbour’s, Franklin and Nancy Birch and their children Eliza and Joy…
Anna is good friends with Joy as they’re relatively the same age.
But during the celebrations, the two families become aware of the fact that Anna and Joy have seemingly vanished without a trace after a strange RV was parked outside…
… and a desperate attempt is launched at finding the two missing girls.
But it won’t be easy when it transpires that the only suspect is a young male with the mind of a child… and the Police, especially the hot tempered but highly intelligent Detective David Loki, who is in charge of the case, find themselves completely powerless in the search for Anna and Joy.
So Keller Dover, Anna’s rage fuelled survival nut Father, takes matters into his own hands to get to the truth.
I am so glad I bought this on DVD.
I hadn’t seen it, only heard a few good things about it and took the chance…
Next to my last review of Lawless, this is one of the best films of the 2010s.
Immensely gritty take on the olde kidnapped child plot, Prisoners is a tightly wound nest of boxes that unravels not just the plot and twists along the running time… it unravels characters, character traits, character histories and adds new characters to the mix as it progresses.
Then it throws in some extremely clever plot devices that throw the audience into a state of confusion along with the well acted characters.
Even though there is an incredible amount of detail in every aspect of the film, whether the plot, dialogue, character writing etc, it’s still easy to follow.
The film is a progressive story, an in depth journey of loss and frustration, anger and tears that the audience is swept up in as the film runs along at a comfortable pace.
I’ll get straight to the acting I think… this is what the film really brings to the foreground to make the exceptional writing work so well.
Paul Dano as the mentally handicapped suspect Alex Jones is completely unrecognisable. His take as the disturbed, possibly innocent, possibly guilty, well, weirdo, is perfect for a film of this kind. It throws the audience and keeps the mystery ramped up and Dano carries it extremely well.
We also have Melissa Leo playing Holly Jones, Alex Jones’ Aunt… her role within the film, as with everyone else, is unravelled slowly and her history is revealed perfectly. Leo plays it coolly too.
The Birches are played by Terrence Howard and Viola Davis… they’re not really seen a great deal during the overall running time, but their roles when seen are also used well. They’re stuck in the middle basically. They’re more reliant on searching nearby woods and Police intervention but actually back Keller (Jackman) up when he goes off the rails and even support his cause.
Viola in particular is exceptional in the more emotional scenes.
Hugh Jackman however, we’re treated to a guy whose rage and frustration is seconded only to his sheer will at finding out where his child is.
It’s when Keller is unleashed though that Jackman really comes into his own.The pain you see in the acting is genuinely real.
Jackman absolutely nails this role to the wall.
We’re also treated to Jake Gyllenhaal in possibly the finest acting I’ve ever seen from him.
His Detective that is completely unbending in his task to find Anna and Joy is backed up by what I can only describe as an untold history within the character’s traits and mannerisms… all of this comes through in Jake’s acting.
This is another case of taking a very well written character and tearing up the rule book.
Back up comes from Maria Bello as Grace Dover, who spends most of the film drugged up to the eyeballs, and Dylan Minnette as Ralph Dover.
There’s little actual action as such.
It’s all based around the highly strung scenes between Keller, Loki, The Birches and Alex Jones.
It’s all written perfectly too and the actors involved, as I said, all give 101% to get the audience on the edge of their seat.
Even the more gruesome and heavier scenes, you can’t help but get behind Keller and support him.
There is though, the question of whether he has the right man or not as well that comes from the well developed scripting… going through the journey with the characters the audience is thrown into the mind set of whether Keller’s right or not, and technically, the “action” scenes actually have a massive impact on the mystery aspect of the story.
It’s all very cleverly pieced together.
Review #210, Movie #281
Prisoners
Year Of Release
2013
Director
Denis Villeneuve
Producer
Broderick Johnson, Kira Davis, Andrew A Kosove, Adam Kolbrenner
Writer
Aaron Guzikowski
Cast
Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano, Terrence Howard, Viola Davis, Maria Bello, Dylan Minnette, Erin Gerasimovich, Kyla Drew Simmons, David Dastmalchian and Melissa Leo
Notes
The original cast for this film was going to star Marky Marky Mark Mark and Christian Bale, but the two dropped out in favour of The Fighter. Bryan Singer was also going to direct.
Thank God they all dropped out, Marky Mark and Bryan Singer would have ruined this film.
On a similar, mirrored note, Jackman was going to star in The Lovely Bones, a film with a similar story, but was replaced by Marky Marky Mark Mark.
Leonardo Di Caprio was also attached at one point but he too dropped out.
The film itself was also in development for several years with numerous Directors attached… Jackman was attached way back near the start of production, but dropped out, only then to return to the cast sheet again.
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During Thanksgiving, Keller Dover, his Wife Grace and their children Ralph and Anna, attend the home of their neighbour’s, Franklin and Nancy Birch and their children Eliza and Joy…
Anna is good friends with Joy as they’re relatively the same age.
But during the celebrations, the two families become aware of the fact that Anna and Joy have seemingly vanished without a trace after a strange RV was parked outside…
… and a desperate attempt is launched at finding the two missing girls.
But it won’t be easy when it transpires that the only suspect is a young male with the mind of a child… and the Police, especially the hot tempered but highly intelligent Detective David Loki, who is in charge of the case, find themselves completely powerless in the search for Anna and Joy.
So Keller Dover, Anna’s rage fuelled survival nut Father, takes matters into his own hands to get to the truth.
---
I am so glad I bought this on DVD.
I hadn’t seen it, only heard a few good things about it and took the chance…
Next to my last review of Lawless, this is one of the best films of the 2010s.
Immensely gritty take on the olde kidnapped child plot, Prisoners is a tightly wound nest of boxes that unravels not just the plot and twists along the running time… it unravels characters, character traits, character histories and adds new characters to the mix as it progresses.
Then it throws in some extremely clever plot devices that throw the audience into a state of confusion along with the well acted characters.
Even though there is an incredible amount of detail in every aspect of the film, whether the plot, dialogue, character writing etc, it’s still easy to follow.
The film is a progressive story, an in depth journey of loss and frustration, anger and tears that the audience is swept up in as the film runs along at a comfortable pace.
I’ll get straight to the acting I think… this is what the film really brings to the foreground to make the exceptional writing work so well.
Paul Dano as the mentally handicapped suspect Alex Jones is completely unrecognisable. His take as the disturbed, possibly innocent, possibly guilty, well, weirdo, is perfect for a film of this kind. It throws the audience and keeps the mystery ramped up and Dano carries it extremely well.
We also have Melissa Leo playing Holly Jones, Alex Jones’ Aunt… her role within the film, as with everyone else, is unravelled slowly and her history is revealed perfectly. Leo plays it coolly too.
The Birches are played by Terrence Howard and Viola Davis… they’re not really seen a great deal during the overall running time, but their roles when seen are also used well. They’re stuck in the middle basically. They’re more reliant on searching nearby woods and Police intervention but actually back Keller (Jackman) up when he goes off the rails and even support his cause.
Viola in particular is exceptional in the more emotional scenes.
Hugh Jackman however, we’re treated to a guy whose rage and frustration is seconded only to his sheer will at finding out where his child is.
It’s when Keller is unleashed though that Jackman really comes into his own.The pain you see in the acting is genuinely real.
Jackman absolutely nails this role to the wall.
We’re also treated to Jake Gyllenhaal in possibly the finest acting I’ve ever seen from him.
His Detective that is completely unbending in his task to find Anna and Joy is backed up by what I can only describe as an untold history within the character’s traits and mannerisms… all of this comes through in Jake’s acting.
This is another case of taking a very well written character and tearing up the rule book.
Back up comes from Maria Bello as Grace Dover, who spends most of the film drugged up to the eyeballs, and Dylan Minnette as Ralph Dover.
There’s little actual action as such.
It’s all based around the highly strung scenes between Keller, Loki, The Birches and Alex Jones.
It’s all written perfectly too and the actors involved, as I said, all give 101% to get the audience on the edge of their seat.
Even the more gruesome and heavier scenes, you can’t help but get behind Keller and support him.
There is though, the question of whether he has the right man or not as well that comes from the well developed scripting… going through the journey with the characters the audience is thrown into the mind set of whether Keller’s right or not, and technically, the “action” scenes actually have a massive impact on the mystery aspect of the story.
It’s all very cleverly pieced together.
---
All in all, heavy hitting, full of twists and turns, storylines, characters and plot devices that make the audience question not only what they thought they witnessed in passing glimpses of dialogue and visuals, but makes the viewer even question themself.
The acting is also by far the most intense I’ve seen in a long, long time.
Brilliant filmmaking on all fronts.
My rating: 100%
