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%