Prisoners (2013)

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Screenplay: Aaron Guzikowski

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano

Music: Jóhann Jóhannsson

Time: 153 minutes

Bottom-line: Gripping, chilling and wonderfully acted

Along with Ron Howard’s Rush, Villeneuve’s Prisoners also joins the list of the underrated films of 2013. The film features an ensemble cast, led by Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano, Melissa Lewis, and supported by Viola Davis, Terrence Howard and Maria Bello. The story is set in Penn state, where Keller Dover (Jackman), his wife, Grace (Bello), and daughter, Anna, and his teenage son, Ralph, go to their friend, Franklin’s (Howard) house, where his wife, Nancy (Davis), daughters Joy and Eliza live. As the four children go out, they see an RV with someone inside. After dinner, Joy and Anna disappear.

 

Gyllenhaal as Loki (left) and
Jackman as Dover 

Detective Loki (Gyllenhaal) is assigned the case, and he arrests the driver of the RV: Alex Jones (Dano), a man with the IQ of a ten-year-old, who lives with his aunt, Holly (Leo). Following various leads, Loki also links a priest – who has a corpse in his basement – and another man with an obsession for mazes, to this case, while Keller, having fixed his mind that Alex is responsible, secretly kidnaps and tortures him in his father’s old house. Who is the real criminal?

Like Villeneuve’s other films, Sicario and Incendies, Prisoners also contains a lot of graphic violence (in fact, it had an NC-17 rating during its initial release because of this). Roger Deakins’ cinematography, however, is brilliant (and received an Oscar nod). The emotions, the violence, the action and the ghost-like atmosphere have been captured superbly. Prisoners draws its strength mainly from the acting: Jackman and Gyllenhaal have both given Oscar-worthy performances here.

 

Leo as Holly, and Dano as Alex

Never before would you have witnessed such an angry and monstrous Jackman or such an energetic Gyllenhaal. I love their exchanges and their mind games, each man with his own idea of right and wrong. The role of Keller Dover, a father desperate enough to turn into a criminal, is certainly one of Jackman’s best works. Paul Dano has barely ten lines or so to talk, and his character spends most of the film getting tortured by Dover. He is that character for whom you, as a viewer, feel pity, even more than you do for the father who has lost his daughter.

Prisoners does not spend too much time on the build-up; it cuts to the chase as early as fifteen minutes into the film. From then on it is a roller-coaster ride, where each new character introduced makes you think he is the main suspect. Keep track of every character; the ending ties up everything in one neat bundle. A close inspection of the background of Alex and “maze man” might make you root out a few plot holes but otherwise, the story is clean, with the plot twists giving regular jolts. I’m surprised that Prisoners received very few award nominations/wins, because I, for one, consider it one of the best pictures of 2013, apart from being Villeneuve’s best work.

My Rating: 4/5

Rotten Tomatoes rating: 81%

American Beauty (1999)

Director: Sam Mendes

Story: Alan Ball

Cast: Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch

Music: Thomas Newman

Time: 121 minutes

Bottom-line: A new perspective of life, love and beauty

In less than a year, I will be dead. Of course, I don't know that yet, and in a way, I'm dead already.

Narrated by the lead character, Lester Burnham, Sam Mendes’ debut film, American Beauty is the tale of the lives of two middle-class families in a neighbourhood. The cast consists of Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Wes Bentley, Mena Suvari and Peter Gallagher. The simplistic story explores several themes like love, sexuality, redemption and beauty.

It's hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world.

Lester Burnham (Spacey) is an advertisement executive, who hates his job and equally despises his marriage to Carolyn (Bening), his neurotic, ambitious wife. Their teenage daughter, Jane (Birch), hates both of them. She hangs around with her friend, Angela (Suvari), who always boasts about how other men lust for her. After watching Angela perform as a cheerleader, Lester also starts fantasising about her, and even starts working out to impress her. Fed up with her marriage to Lester, Carolyn starts to have an affair with her business competitor, Buddy Kane (Gallagher). Meanwhile, the new neighbours include a homophobic father, his catatonic wife, and their teenage son, Ricky Fitts (Bentley), who sells marijuana as a business, and videotapes his surroundings constantly. Various events over the following weeks bring about a change in members of both families.

 

Spacey as Lester (the rose petals are a recurring image
every time Lester fantasises about Angela) 

This isn't life, it's just stuff. And it's become more important to you than living.   

The film’s underlying theme is to discover life. Lester is fed up with his white-collar job, and decides to work out to explore his new-found feelings of sexuality towards Angela, hoping it would rejuvenate his life. He takes steps to live life as he pleases: by smoking pot, taking up a job “with the least amount of responsibility”, and suddenly becoming the dominant one in the family. In the end, he realises that he has been having a good life all along, but he has failed to realise it. Carolyn also hopes for a change in her life, resulting in her affair with Buddy. Jane, initially having no self-esteem, starts seeing herself anew once she hangs out with Ricky. Angela, from being self-centred and egotistic, by the end of the film, comes to terms with reality that she is “ordinary”. Rick’s character is a static one, but through him, the other theme is introduced: that beauty can be seen in everything. It can be in a dead bird, it can be in a plastic bag floating in the wind, or it can be in the eyes of a dead man; he films everything to remember all the beauty in the world surrounding him. It’s surprising in retrospect, when you realise that Ricky’s character remains as is throughout the film, but he changes the nature of everyone around him.

 

Bening as Carolyn

These fetishes and fantasies ultimately lead to the destruction of both the Burnham family and the Fitts family. By the end of the movie, when everyone gets a sense of realisation, it is already too late. As Lester says (to the viewers), “I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life. You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry. You will someday.” I liked the humour elements used throughout the film, mainly because of Lester’s change in character; the scene where the Burnhams sit for dinner is darkly hilarious. The cinematography is also a highlight, especially the shots used to show Lester’s fantasies: with the rose petals, the slow-motion camerawork, and the hypnotic music. I also like the way scenes are sometimes shown to us through Ricky’s camera, sometimes directly, and at times, both.

 

Suvari as Angela (left) and Birch as Jane

The acting, by every cast member, is outstanding. Kevin Spacey, with his deadpan demeanour and the sudden bursts of violence and anger, is splendid, and this could well be his finest work till date; he won the Oscar for Best Actor too. Annette Bening, with her hysterics and emotional outbursts, has also done brilliantly. With top-class acting and a thought-provoking story (with a debatable climax), American Beauty must certainly be on your to-watch list.  

Bentley as Ricky 

My Rating: 4/5

Rotten Tomatoes rating: 88%