Prisoners

Prisoners, the new film from Canadian director Denis Villeneuve (Polytechnique), is a top notch nail-biting crime-drama that is as good a theatre as modern Hollywood has the ability to produce.

Hugh Jackman and Maria Bello play the parental figures of the Dover family. They are your average hard-working blue-collar family who begin their story by visiting neighbours Franklin and Nancy Birch (Terrence Howard and Viola Davis) for a Thanksgiving dinner. The Franklins and the Dover's each have two children, the youngest of which (Anna and Joy) head out from their home on a November afternoon to play only to mysteriously disappear.

Upon a frantic search, the Franklins and the Dover's suspect the worse. Especially when their elder children tell them of a mysterious camper that was parked just down the street. Police soon find the camper with Alex Jones (Paul Dano) behind the wheel. Alex has the mentality of a 10-year-old and tries fleeing when surrounded by authorities. But when Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) begins to interrogate Alex, he is less convinced that Alex was a part of the abduction. As days pass, Loki and Keller Doller work in opposite directions on the investigation. Keller is convinced that Alex Jones was a part of the abduction and kidnaps the frail and challenged Jones and tortures him for days in an attempt to extract answers. Meanwhile, Detective Loki follows leads that open up possibilities of a crime where multiple persons may be involved. And Oscar nominee Melissa Leo appears in a supporting but pivotal role that will assist in the closure.

The trailer for Prisoners may have audiences hearkening back to Ron Howard's Ransom, but this is hardly the cookie-cutter kidnapping film that Mel Gibson lead back in 1996. Prisoners instead is an engulfing drama. One with a superb performance by lead Hugh Jackman that challenges how far someone would/should go in an effort to locate their stolen child.

The script, from writer Aaron Guzikowski (Contrband) takes audiences down many different paths and emotional rides and Jackman's performance will have you rooting for his quest for answers even though his methods are unorthodox and highly illegal.

The film is gritty and full of realistic characters and situations culminating in a perfect ending that goes 9/10ths of the way in giving its audience full closure. Not as much an edge-of-your seat thriller as it is a Zodiac type of crime drama where the stakes are the lives of two small children.

Denis Villeneuve's last effort, Incendies, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 2011. Prisoners shows that he can move solidly into big star larger scaled films with the ease of a well worn slipper. And Prisoners catapults Villeneuve into not just a director to watch, but a director whose work should be awaited with palpable excitement.

www.killerreviews.com

"Prisoners" is rich in compelling narratives and stellar performances from the ensemble cast. This movie had me love and hate Hugh Jackman's character which was so complex to the point of making me question my moral standards because I found myself empathizing with his character. On the other hand, Jake Gyllenhaal did a marvelous job on playing the frustrated cop: complete with all the intensity of his eyes and his intuition. While Gyllenhaal had more screentime as the lead, Jackman's performance really stood out for me.

This film doesn't use jumpscares (often precluded by suspenseful music to build-up the tension and are often abused in this genre) in order to thrill the audience, but rather, moments of silence and stillness. Its calm and cold vibe stirs up the kind of anxiety it wants its audience to feel, and naturally, the audience would want to get rid of that uneasiness by knowing what's going on, thus, cleverly forcing them to watch the entire film which runs about 2 hrs and 33 mins.

The director, Denis Villeneuve, incorporates his "less is more" style of using soundtracks in this movie (just like what he did with Blade Runner 2049) to emphasize the scenes, especially with the ending (heavens know how much I liked that ending). It's not rocket suspense but the simplicity of it makes your mind wander to other possibilities which I think is often a good indication of a brilliant film since it's open for other interpetations.

However, one thing that won't make me rate this a perfect 9 or 8 is the fact that I'm not entirely convinced on the motivation of the antagonists for doing the things they did. It felt a bit rushed (for the lack of a better word) and while it makes sense, it doesn't leave me satisfied

Prisoners is a gritty, incredibly well-acted, suspenseful, thought-provoking crime drama thriller. The film mainly focus on the choices taken and the consequences faced by the characters when worst things happen to them.

It simply raises the question: When your kid's life is at stake, how far are you willing to do to protect your family? It explores the likelihood of human behaviour when such crime is happening to us, blurring the lines between good and bad people.

For a 153 minute movie, the story does unfolds at a slow and solemn pace (which hurts the film and might bore some audiences) but the dramatic scenes performed by the main cast members in the film will keep you engaged. Hugh Jackman and Jack Gyllenhaal both giving intense, Oscar-worthy performances here, defining and developing their characters with various layers of emotions: affection, anger, grief, empathy, guilt...throughout the film.

The film's atmosphere, heavy rains, stormy days and icy cold winter managed to create a dark, dreadful environment to make up the dreary and haunting mood in the film. Every violent action taken by the characters are acts of desperation given that they are running out of time.

However, the film is not perfect. Despite some plot problems from the various twists and turns shown in the film, the superb performances from the casts was sufficient enough to make the story succeed and believable.

Highly recommended for those who wanted to watch a serious drama thriller with powerful, engaging acting performances from its talented casts.

http://yjcool.blogspot.com/2013/09/movie-review-prisoners.html

I just came back from the theater and to be honest I went into this movie with very low expectation! But WOW did it prove me wrong. The film left me on the edge of my seat all the time, one could argue things were slow sometimes but it only adds to the beauty of the big picture.

Performance are top notch and if it was for me I would give Jackman his very deserved Oscar for this amazing performance, of course all the other performances were really great also but Hugh's stands out for me.

This movie is worth your time, and I'm sure by the end of it you'll keep talking about it with your friends, for me that is a success stamp if the movie can keep my mind busy all the time.

This is not your feel-good movie. This is a perfectly paced thriller which I haven't seen anything like it in a very long time. For me this was a totally new experience as I usually go for lighter movies in the cinema, but after this movie I will go out of my comfort-zone in movies more often to find masterpieces like this one.

Hugh Jackman takes you on a trip through the intense emotions a family is put through during its darkest hour. This may be his best role to date. From the trailers you know that his character will be out for blood as their daughter was kidnapped, but throughout the film you feel his pain, anger and moral struggles as he deals with this situation. The director does an excellent job of keeping you invested in the film emotionally even through some intensely violent scenes. Its dreary setting provides no comfort, but goes hand and hand with the narrative. This film may not be for those faint of heart but should be a must see for most viewers.