Prisoners – 2013
How many of us with children have watched a TV news report about a child abduction and not said or thought something along the lines of, “If someone ever did that to my child I would hunt him down and torture him to death.”? If so, this movie is for you. The center of the movie is a torture/revenge fantasy for all those who would like to take action in the face of evil but can’t. It’s angry, it’s violent and it’s hard to watch at times.
It’s hard to watch because of the violence, but for me it was equally hard to watch because we as viewers know it’s premature. But we also feel the panic of the parent, knowing they only have so many hours to find the children or it will probably be too late. We would not and could not choose to do what this parent has done, but we wish we could to some degree.
The laconic, world-weary detective in charge of the case, played by Jake Gyllanhall, thinks the main suspect is creepy and knows he was in the vicinity, but he also has no evidence to hold him and believes he is mentally not really capable of pulling off a kidnapping crime like this. The torturer, a rough-hewn blue collar family man played by Hugh Jackman, is convinced that the guy is the guilty party. After he is let go, he kidnaps him and tortures him to exact information about the whereabouts of his child. It doesn’t work as expected but he does come close to destroying his family and the family of the other abducted girl in the meanwhile.
The film is shot in somber tones of grey and brown in low, natural light. With the outdoor locations shot in either driving rain or heavy dark skies and indoor scenes shot in boring living rooms and abandoned buildings the mood is of unrelenting tension and anxiety. What isn’t shot in those conditions is shot at night with it’s accompanying feeling of being lost and unable to discern what is really there and what is the product of a paranoid, angry mind.
The reason behind the movie’s title is evident as the movie moves along. All the characters, not just the abducted girls, are prisoners (mind you, you don’t know if the abducted girls are alive or dead throughout the movie but the title does suggest it might be the case). The parents and siblings are prisoners of the waiting game and of guilt. The detective, covered in telling tattoos, likely has a gang background of some sort, maybe even was in prison himself at one point. Besides that he is a prisoner of a Captain who is not helping his investigation very much, prisoner of a fatalistic mentality, prisoner of having to go by the book. The suspect is a prisoner, his mother is a prisoner, and even innocent (or not so innocent) bystanders are prisoners as well.
Is it a successful movie? Yes it is. The plot is convoluted but believable. The possible directions the story could go are manifold. The script and characters are believable and compelling, playing off each other’s personalities in intense and unexpected ways.
The main deciding factors in whether you might want to see the movie or not are whether you:
- Like intense portrayals of anger and personal violence (not guns, but fists and other close up type violence and torture)
- Like police work procedurals with evidence and emotion based hunts for criminals.
- Like intense, character and plot driven drama.
Overall I give the movie 3 out of 5 napkins.
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Movie review by Marty Coleman
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