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PRISONERS
The 2013 film Prisoners is a meticulously mounted and well acted crime drama that is disturbing on a number of different levels. This cringe-worthy crime drama had me questioning concepts I hadn't before like "innocent until proven guilty" and had me wondering about the lengths that the justice system goes to protect criminals' rights sometimes more than the victims, producing a long yet riveting cinematic journey whose bittersweet ending left a bad taste in my mouth. It's also another one of those movies that makes you want to hug your kids, then lock them in their rooms and never let them out.
Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) and pal Franklin Birch (Terrance Howard) get together with their families on a rainy Thanksgiving and, while waiting for dinner, their two youngest daughters go out to play and encounter an RV parked down the street. Several hours later, the RV is gone and so are the girls, initiating a police investigation, led by a police detective named Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) who arrests Alex Jones (Paul Dano), the owner of the RV but doesn't have enough evidence to hold him. Upon his release, Jones says something to Keller, that conveniently no one else hears, that implies he knows where the girls are, which causes something to snap in Keller making the crazed father going to dangerous and unspeakable extremes to get his daughter back.
Aaron Guzikowski's complex screenplay offers a lot of red herrings in its attempt to keep the viewer guessing, something it accomplishes in spades and has the guilty looking like the victims and vice versa. It's aggravating watching the criminals' rights being savagely protected and some really obvious police procedures not even come to play in solving this horrific crime. The screenplay keeps meticulous track of how long the girls have been missing and my heart sank when, approximately halfway through the film, it is revealed that the girls have been missing for a week, knowing that, after 48 hours, most abductions have become homicides.
What does make this film watchable is Denis Villeneuve's striking direction which offers some arresting visual images and some really amazing performances. Hugh Jackman gives the performance of his career as Dover, the crazed father who finds one roadblock after another in the quest for his daughter and has no choice but to take the law in his own hands. Jackman is frighteningly unhinged as a father driven to desperate measures to get his daughter back. He is well-matched by Gyllenhaal as the not-as-laid-back-as-he-appears-to-be detective who begins to live this case. Paul Dano, a young actor who is making a career out of playing creepy and bizarre characters, adds another to his resume and Oscar winner Melissa Leo is impressive, as always, as Dano's mother. Howard as Birch, Maria Bello as Keller's wife, and Viola Davis as Birch's wife, make the most of underwritten roles, but it is the compelling story that only partially satisfies and the performances of Jackman and Gyllenhaal that make this one sizzle.
The 2013 film Prisoners is a meticulously mounted and well acted crime drama that is disturbing on a number of different levels. This cringe-worthy crime drama had me questioning concepts I hadn't before like "innocent until proven guilty" and had me wondering about the lengths that the justice system goes to protect criminals' rights sometimes more than the victims, producing a long yet riveting cinematic journey whose bittersweet ending left a bad taste in my mouth. It's also another one of those movies that makes you want to hug your kids, then lock them in their rooms and never let them out.
Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) and pal Franklin Birch (Terrance Howard) get together with their families on a rainy Thanksgiving and, while waiting for dinner, their two youngest daughters go out to play and encounter an RV parked down the street. Several hours later, the RV is gone and so are the girls, initiating a police investigation, led by a police detective named Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) who arrests Alex Jones (Paul Dano), the owner of the RV but doesn't have enough evidence to hold him. Upon his release, Jones says something to Keller, that conveniently no one else hears, that implies he knows where the girls are, which causes something to snap in Keller making the crazed father going to dangerous and unspeakable extremes to get his daughter back.
Aaron Guzikowski's complex screenplay offers a lot of red herrings in its attempt to keep the viewer guessing, something it accomplishes in spades and has the guilty looking like the victims and vice versa. It's aggravating watching the criminals' rights being savagely protected and some really obvious police procedures not even come to play in solving this horrific crime. The screenplay keeps meticulous track of how long the girls have been missing and my heart sank when, approximately halfway through the film, it is revealed that the girls have been missing for a week, knowing that, after 48 hours, most abductions have become homicides.
What does make this film watchable is Denis Villeneuve's striking direction which offers some arresting visual images and some really amazing performances. Hugh Jackman gives the performance of his career as Dover, the crazed father who finds one roadblock after another in the quest for his daughter and has no choice but to take the law in his own hands. Jackman is frighteningly unhinged as a father driven to desperate measures to get his daughter back. He is well-matched by Gyllenhaal as the not-as-laid-back-as-he-appears-to-be detective who begins to live this case. Paul Dano, a young actor who is making a career out of playing creepy and bizarre characters, adds another to his resume and Oscar winner Melissa Leo is impressive, as always, as Dano's mother. Howard as Birch, Maria Bello as Keller's wife, and Viola Davis as Birch's wife, make the most of underwritten roles, but it is the compelling story that only partially satisfies and the performances of Jackman and Gyllenhaal that make this one sizzle.