Prisoners - Review

Director: Denis Villeneuve Writer: Aaron Guzikowski Studios: Warner Bros., Alcon Entertainment Cast: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Melissa Leo, Paul Dano Release Date (UK): 27 September 2013 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 153 min

Two six-year-old girls vanish without a trace from their Pennsylvania neighbourhood during Thanksgiving dinner. Apparently kidnapped, they are nowhere to be found, the only clue to their whereabouts being the RV that was parked on the street before the girls went missing. The sole suspect (Paul Dano), the mentally challenged owner of the RV who attempts to flee when approached by authorities, is clearly hiding something, but is released from police custody due to lack of evidence. Desperate, the father of one of the girls (Hugh Jackman) decides to take matters into his own hands, defying the orders of head investigator Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) and resorting to extreme measures to find his daughter before it’s too late.

This is the story of “Prisoners,” a crime thriller that grips right from its haunting opening, where parental panic takes a sharp turn into abject horror: a child abducted on the street, a parent’s worst nightmare realised in full. Flaunting the epic length of David Fincher’s underseen “Zodiac,” in which Gyllenhaal was also on the hunt for a killer, and the chillingly atmospheric cinematography of the legendary Roger Deakins, director Denis Villeneuve’s sprawling kidnap drama is an enthralling and challenging exploration into how violence inevitably begets more violence and how the only outcome of evil is more evil.

The film is harrowing in ways that are expected and ways that are unexpected. If you’ve seen the trailers, you’ll know some of the unexpected ways. Emotional and moral complexities entangle the narrative as Jackman’s Keller Dover hunts for information, committing ethically questionable acts that spiral hideously into cold-blooded monstrousness and which are sure to have viewers recoiling in horror while shifting their sympathies. If Kathryn Bigelow's controversial “Zero Dark Thirty” supposedly endorsed torture (it didn’t), then “Prisoners” absolutely condemns it, showing it for the evil that it is: a cowardly act of desperation that dehumanises all involved, all the while wielding no worthwhile results.

At the film’s centre are two outstanding performances from Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal, both obsessed with finding young Anna and Joy, one operating on the right side of the law, the other on the wrong. Jackman, recently superb in “Les Misérables,” perfectly portrays the mental anguish and helplessness of not knowing where your children are, not knowing if they’re safe and indeed not knowing if they’re even alive. More mysterious is Gyllenhaal, whose twitchy Detective Loki is driven to obsession in his impossible mission to locate the two abducted girls and identify their kidnapper. Loki is one of the great film detectives, troubled and enigmatic but strangely likeable, and endearingly driven in his commitment to justice.

That the film’s final third or so, in which all is finally revealed, feels slightly generic speaks only of the power and strength of the rest of the movie. This is a great crime thriller: intelligent, complex and utterly captivating, and which can pride itself as one of the best films of the year so far.

Rating: 9/10