Film Review: Prisoners

Director: Denis Villeneuve

An American thriller set in small town Pennsylvania, it was written by Aaron Guzikowski who wrote the dready screenplay to Contraband but does a much better job here. Mark Wahlberg is an executive producer as well. It was was actually filmed in Georgia during the winter and was quite a tough film to work on due to the subject matter and emotion involved.

Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman)

Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) is a deeply religious man, married to Grace Dover (Maria Bello). Their daughter goes missing on Thanksgiving after going outside without consent, she disappears along with the daughter of Franklin Birch (Terrence Howard) and Nancy (Viola Davis). Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) is assigned to the case then quickly finds and interviews Alex Jones (Paul Dano) whose RV was parked by the house. But he has to be released after 48 hours because they can't bring charges which angers Keller so he decides to take the law into his own hands.

The film is beautifully shot in a depressing and cold small town with many people living in slightly run down wooden houses. The recession has clearly hit the town hard with people like Keller Dover struggling for work but this is only subtly hinted at rather than blatantly played out. The tall trees and inclement weather have a very haunting quality.

Prisoners represents every parents worse nightmare as they believe they are completely safe in their small town, a heartbreaking scene involves Grace telling her husband that he promised to protect them when there was nothing he could have done to stop what happened. Jackman himself is an incredibly intense character with a constant angry frown even before the abduction. The film is swept by the performances of Paul Dano as the main suspect who has the IQ of a 10 year old and especially by Jake Gyllenhaal as the detective whose obsessive nature leads the case. Detective Loki is clearly a man fighting his past demons but these are never dealt with in the course of the movie, his homemade style tattoos and anger issues portray a man with a troubled history.

Alex Jones (Paul Dano) and Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal)

The plot has plenty of twists along the way to keep you intrigued but by the end you feel that one too many rugs have been pulled from under your feet. I genuinely felt the movie should have ended 30mins early rather than have one more final big twist which felt rather far-fetched and excessive. The mystery around their disappearance is the main motivation through the film but the bigger question here is how far would you go to find your daughter? Would you break the law? Its easy to judge from here but very different if you were in Keller Dover's shoes.

3/4 Tense mystery thriller tries one twist too many