PRISONERS
DIRECTOR: Denis Villeneuve
CAST: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano, Terrence Howard, Viola Davis and Maria Bello
CLASSIFICATION: 16LV
RUNNING TIME: 153 minutes
RATING: ****
TENSE, disturbing and detailed, this well- constructed mystery thriller functions even better as a character study.
Though the men come off more well-rounded than the women, Prisoners delves into the various ways people respond to stress, particularly how parents respond when their children go missing.
Roger Deakins’ cinematography does much to create the anxious atmosphere with the claustrophobic wintry weather, but it is the atypically lit night scenes – candle-light vigils, swirling snow lit up by car headlights, or a torture scene in which the victim is visible only when a tiny sliver of light hits him – which sets the disturbing tone. Shadows menace and scenes are richly textured as much because of set details as the way Deakins has framed scenes.
Any parent who watches this film will be freaked out. Director Denis Villeneuve does scary things that can happen to normal people really well (he also directed the powerful and moving Incendies) and he meticulously captures the sense of helplessness faced by the Dover and Birch families.
Spending Thanksgiving together, the families are thrown into an escalating panic when young Anna (Erin Gerasimovich) and Joy (Kyla Drew Simmons) disappear. The policeman heading the investigation, Detective Loki (Gyllenhaal), quickly makes an arrest, but is just as quickly frustrated by strange young Alex (Dano), who has the mentality of a 10-year-old.
Keller Dover (Jackman), father of the missing Anna, takes matters into his own hands and kidnaps Alex to extract details of the children’s whereabouts when the police are forced to let him go.
Dover starts torturing Alex, but is forced to tell Franklin Birch (Howard) – the father of the missing Joy – what he is doing, much to the chagrin of the second father, who now has another bit of guilt to add to losing his daughter in the first place.
Meanwhile, Detective Loki is doggedly following clues, but becomes increasingly suspicious of Keller, who disappears for long stretches of time.
Keller’s wife, Grace (Bello), goes the chemical numbness route, while Franklin’s wife, Nancy (Davis), desperately tries to hold together her fragmenting family.
Then there’s Alex’s aunt, Holly Jones (Leo), who knows more than she is letting on… and that’s not even halfway into the film, which ends up going somewhere the beginning does not suggest.
We are so used to seeing Jackman as the nice, affable guy (when he is not ripping bad guys to shreds with adamantium claws) that you don’t at first believe he is about to hurt someone in cold blood, but that is pretty much the point – how far will a normal person go to find their child?
Jackman runs the full gamut of shock, grief, horror, vulnerability and empathy and still keeps you guessing about his morality – is Keller the good guy? Has he just been pressed too hard, or is there something else at play?
Gyllenhaal is also in top form, contained and restrained – where Jackman’s emotion is apparent, even when his actions are not, Gyllenhaal’s cop is detached from his emotions.
While we get very little of Loki’s history, with just a few references, a nervous tic and some tattoos, Gyllenhaal builds up a complicated character who is fascinated by the mystery playing out in front of him.
Once Alex is locked up and being tortured, it is all screams and blood so you start seesawing. Is he guilty? Does he know something? Is Keller going too far?
If you liked Mystic River or The Town you will like this.