REVIEW: PRISONERS
Kicking off the feel-good movie of the year that is Denis Villeneuve's "Prisoners" is a scene where your typical blue-collar family (Hugh Jackman, with a perfect American accent and Maria Bello with their son and young daughter) visits another typical blue collar family (with Viola Davis and Terrence Howard as the parents) for Thanksgiving. After a walk where the two girls pick off icicles on a large white van, they excuse themselves from listening to Terrence Howard's horrendous trumpet playing to pick up a red whistle they left at Jackman's daughter's house. When the parents go back outside, poof, the children have disappeared.
This remarkably grim, depressing and involving film is a surefire for the upcoming Oscars, and is one of the year's best thrillers by a landslide. With it's lengthy two and a half hour running time, one would expect there to be a significant amount of character study, and the actors, along with a labyrinthine script from Aaron Guzikowski elevate the material to a sleek, grimy vengeance drama that will have you shielding your eyes at times.
Despite kissing his girl on the head and showing adoring affection for his wife pre-kidnapping, Jackman's God-fearing Keller Dover is an unmerciful man capable of revolting acts of violence and torture. One of the movie's central themes is vigilantism, and how far a parent can be pushed. Dover brutally tortures a man (Paul Dano) who is suspected in his daughter's vanishing, and emotional strokes left over from his Oscar-nominated turn in last year's "Les Miz" pop up in the veins that engulf his face when he screams at cop Detective Loki or generally anyone who gets in his way. Perhaps this movie is most telling when I realized I was rooting for Jackman to extract the info from the suspect, even through illegal methods. I'm smelling another nomination for ol' Wolverine.
As America has seen from watching Syrian children being killed from saran gas, the imperilment of a child evokes radically different responses from people. Some beef I had with this movie was the cliched gender roles, Maria Bello confined mostly in this movie to popping pills, weeping, and having illusions. Viola Davis' Nancy breaks the mold a little, and eventually wants to meet the man Dover has locked up who might have killed her daughter. Terrence Howard is equally strong as Franklin, whose ideas differ from Dover but whose mission remains the same.
But perhaps the best performance of the film may belong to Jake Gyllenhaal's Loki, a man who just has easily becomes as attached as the Dovers are to this case. While struggling to remain emotionally unattached, a nervous eye tic and Loki's emotional breakouts show he's just as much of a prisoner to the situation as anyone of these characters in the year's best cast, including an unrecognizable Melissa Leo, looking even more un-glamorous than she did in "The Fighter."
I was never once lost or bored in this lengthy movie's time duration; it's rare a movie like this grips you for so long, and the investment being so worth it. With a stunning ensemble, strong script and an emotional wallop of a score, "Prisoners" holds your attention like it holds its characters hostage to an unthinkable tragedy.
Rating: 3/4 stars
This remarkably grim, depressing and involving film is a surefire for the upcoming Oscars, and is one of the year's best thrillers by a landslide. With it's lengthy two and a half hour running time, one would expect there to be a significant amount of character study, and the actors, along with a labyrinthine script from Aaron Guzikowski elevate the material to a sleek, grimy vengeance drama that will have you shielding your eyes at times.Despite kissing his girl on the head and showing adoring affection for his wife pre-kidnapping, Jackman's God-fearing Keller Dover is an unmerciful man capable of revolting acts of violence and torture. One of the movie's central themes is vigilantism, and how far a parent can be pushed. Dover brutally tortures a man (Paul Dano) who is suspected in his daughter's vanishing, and emotional strokes left over from his Oscar-nominated turn in last year's "Les Miz" pop up in the veins that engulf his face when he screams at cop Detective Loki or generally anyone who gets in his way. Perhaps this movie is most telling when I realized I was rooting for Jackman to extract the info from the suspect, even through illegal methods. I'm smelling another nomination for ol' Wolverine.
As America has seen from watching Syrian children being killed from saran gas, the imperilment of a child evokes radically different responses from people. Some beef I had with this movie was the cliched gender roles, Maria Bello confined mostly in this movie to popping pills, weeping, and having illusions. Viola Davis' Nancy breaks the mold a little, and eventually wants to meet the man Dover has locked up who might have killed her daughter. Terrence Howard is equally strong as Franklin, whose ideas differ from Dover but whose mission remains the same.But perhaps the best performance of the film may belong to Jake Gyllenhaal's Loki, a man who just has easily becomes as attached as the Dovers are to this case. While struggling to remain emotionally unattached, a nervous eye tic and Loki's emotional breakouts show he's just as much of a prisoner to the situation as anyone of these characters in the year's best cast, including an unrecognizable Melissa Leo, looking even more un-glamorous than she did in "The Fighter."
I was never once lost or bored in this lengthy movie's time duration; it's rare a movie like this grips you for so long, and the investment being so worth it. With a stunning ensemble, strong script and an emotional wallop of a score, "Prisoners" holds your attention like it holds its characters hostage to an unthinkable tragedy.
Rating: 3/4 stars
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