Prisioneros

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

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.

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Prisoners (2013)

**** (out of 4)

Incredibly well-made and intense mystery about two little girls who go missing and the detective (Jake Gyllenhaal) put on the case to find them. When the original suspect (Paul Dano) is let go, one of the girl's father (Hugh Jackman) decides to take justice in his own hands. I really had high hopes going into PRISONERS and my expectations for a great film were met but I must admit that it wasn't anywhere near the type of great film I expected. A lot of thrillers these days are limited on talk and emotions and instead we just get one big, staged action scene after another. That's certainly not the case here because the film takes its time (153-minutes) telling its story and there are so many quiet moments where we just see the characters losing their grip and emotions as they try to make sense of not knowing where these two girls are. What really pushes the film over the edge are the terrific performances with Jackson leading the way in what's the best performance I've seen from him. This isn't your "loving" father in the traditional sense. Instead he's someone quite scary from the first time we see him and we see how much worse he gets as the picture goes along. While on one hand you sympathize with his situation, on the other hand you really can't support what he's doing and often wonderful about his own involvement in things. Jackman really comes off like a man full of emotion and rage and he just doesn't know how to properly let it out. The anger he shows throughout the film is something so raw that you really do feel as if you're watching a man who has a daughter missing. Gyllenhaal also deserves a lot of credit for the way he played the detective role. I really loved the various obstacles that his character gets put through and especially the own weakness and at times stuck-up approach. The supporting cast includes wonderful performances by Dano, Melissa Leo, Terrence Howard, Maria Bello and Viola Davis. The screenplay isn't going to give you a lot of easy answers and there are many times where you hate the lead characters and can't find anything in them to root for. I thought it was quite brave that the film was willing to take so many chances and it asks the viewer to ask themselves many questions about how they would react to what's going on. I can't say I agreed with all the choices but it's great that a film actually makes you think as that's something quite rare these days. PRISONERS isn't exactly an "enjoyable" film as it has you feeling dirty throughout the running time but if you stick with it the thing is certainly very rewarding.

If you think of someone being a prisoner, you automatically might think of someone behind bars. But apart from a physical prison, a prisoner can also be trapped mentally, either by his own doing or by someone else. This movie that starts off pretty light gets very heavy. And it is carried by its actors. Gyllenhalls characters might seem odd and out of place at the beginning, even like a cardboard cutout. But he does have more to do as the movie progresses.

Still front row seat is Hugh Jackman. And while some might argue that a female should have a bigger role in this, you only have so much time to tell a story. And this is perfectly told and cut together. It might not fit your description of entertainment (and I don't think the filmmaker would love it described as such), but the movie is really great. If you like dramas in general you should be cherishing this .... and you will.

We have a few grey areas that we visit and the ending did not satisfy everyone (I know from friends). But the movie could not have ended any other way (in my book). Superb movie one of the best released in 2013

Prisoners is extremely suspenseful and equally disturbing. Canadian director Denis Villeneuve, whose last film was the equally spellbinding and disturbing Incendies, builds up the tension from the first frame and does not let up for the full 153 minutes of the movie. Aaron Guzikowski's script, though on the surface a child kidnapping thriller, bucks all Hollywood trends and, as well as being a taut thriller, poses serious moral issues. It also helps that the film has a first rate cast doing outstanding work: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano, Terence Howard, Melissa Leo, Maria Bello and Viola Davis. Prisoners is not for the faint heated but is likely to feature strongly at next year's Oscars.