Prisoners

PRISONERS

Director : Denis Villenueve

Year : 2013

Genre : Thriller

Rating : ***1/2

Throwing us into a world of bleak desperation and horrific moral conundrums, 'Prisoners' is a deeply intense and haunting thriller from director Denis Villeneuve. Starring Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal  Terrence Howard, Paul Dano, Mario Bello and Viola Davis, the movie tells the story of a fathers desperate efforts to retrieve his kidnapped daughter from a notorious paedophile. Echoing both the aesthetics of modern Scandinavian cinema and the more extreme works of Michael Haneke, Villeneuve combines the most atmospheric and threatening cinematic visual styles together to make 'Prisoners' an incredibly distressing and hypnotically engrossing watch. With multiple Oscar worthy performances and a blistering directorial eye, the film is one of the more disturbing and certainly more gripping thrillers of 2013.  However, despite it's 154 minute running time and astonishing performances, 'Prisoners' does feel rather unremarkable and empty and thanks to some rather unbelievable narrative twists and a blindingly stupid red herring, it sadly loses it's way in the final act.

When Keller Dover's young daughter and her friend are kidnapped off the street by an unknown person on a cold Thanksgiving Day, he takes matters into his own hands and begins to exact his own form of punishment and terrible retribution on the man he believes to be the abductor. 

Director Denis Villeneuve is no stranger to Academy Award worthy material, having previously made the brilliant Canadian thriller 'Incendies' which was nominated for Best Foreign Language film at the 2011 Oscars ceremony. Obviously 'Prisoners' will be getting more of a wider release than his previous works and I hope that the critical and commercial success of this film will open audiences eyes to Villenueves fantastic back catalogue. Combining both the cold air of the American countryside with blue filters and an imposing camera style, Villenueve places us right in the middle of the action and thanks to the completely absorbing performance from Hugh Jackman, we are drawn into both the atmosphere of the movie and the tension felt by each character; whether he/she be antagonist or protagonist. Watching 'Prisoners', I was immediately reminded of the brilliant Swedish 'Millennium' trilogy, which also managed to tell an extremely distressing story while combining it with beautiful cinematography and astonishing visuals to distract from the horrific violence and hideous cruelty. Of course due to the small scale of the picture, 'Prisoners' doesn't look as bold or as aesthetically pleasing as 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo', but it does also succeed in covering it's distressing imagery with eye catching camera work and a bleak and dismal palette created by director of photography Roger Deakins.

'Prisoners' is a film that totally relies on the talents of the actors; it contains little to no CGI and the pace is at best, steady. Thankfully each performance is pitch perfect and all help to give the picture a sense of dimension and reality, moving the film along and distracting us from the unnecessarily long running time. Anchoring the film is an astonishing central performance from Hugh Jackman, who encapsulates both the anger and the sorrow felt by anyone who has had to endure the loss of a family member. His actions force us to ask ourselves 'what would we do in this situation?' and the moral dilemmas and ethical ambiguity felt by each of the main protagonists add to the growing air of unease and desperation. Drawing out every emotion possible, Jackman is astonishingly good as the antihero of the movie and while there may be no definite right or wrong answer about his retribution, I certainly felt more inclined towards the bloodthirsty. Changing from a loving Christian to a man willing to maim and kill for his daughter, he shows us that any person is capable of harm and that when it comes down it, there is nothing more important than family.

Playing the head of the policed investigation is Detective Loki played by Jake Gyllenhaal who falls into the role very well and holds his own against the mighty performance of Hugh Jackman. His voice and mannerisms betray a man who carries layers and layers of complexity and while strong in the presence of criminals, is weak and damaged by his past. Unlike the other characters, we are given very little back story to Loki and this helps to add to the moral ambiguity and the motivations of his personality; we never know what he is truly thinking or hoping for and this does make us distrust him at multiple points through the film. He doesn't seem to respect the feelings of the victims and is much more interested in impressing his captain and becoming better at his job. This defies the generic archetype of the typical 'thriller policeman' and helps to make Loki a much more undefinable and interesting character. 

The supporting cast are equally good; Terrence Howard and Viola Davis are very good as the conflicted but morally complicit parents of the other kidnapped girl, Melissa Leo is convincing enough as the supposed abductors aunt and while not really given much to do but scream and mumble, Paul Dano is quietly threatening as the unintelligent and seemingly oblivious suspect. 

Despite it's great cast and superb direction, 'Prisoners' does become increasingly conventional and while it's ending is certainly suspenseful, it will seem strangely familiar to any die - hard thriller fans. Leaping out of reality and twirling off into surprisingly far - fetched territory, 'Prisoners' ends on somewhat of a downbeat and while not completely destroying the effect of the movie, it does feel like a massive anticlimax. However, despite it's problems and it's unnecessarily long running time, 'Prisoners' is still a hugely entertaining watch that is completely held down by Jackson's career best performance and it's overwhelmingly depressing tone.