Prisoners (2013) – Review

Horror filmmakers can try to put as many unspeakable terrors on the screen as they can, but all the boogeymen, monsters and apparitions in the world can’t possibly hope to match the sinking horror that must exist in the hearts of parents at the slightest thought of their kids suddenly vanishing without a trace. In 2013, Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve decided to harness the unspeakable dread of the subject matter for his first, English language movie, Prisoners and the result was an appropriately harrowing experience that evoked the gnawing cruelty of David Fincher’s Zodiac and the predicted savage unpredictability of the first season of True Detective.
As you’d expect from the filmmaker that went on to deliver sweat inducing border crosses in Sicario and truly original close encounters with Arrival, Villeneuve doesn’t do things by half – so if you’re expecting a quiet, introspective look at a parent’s grief in the face of an unthinkable act, guess again. In fact, I’d pre-book a dentist appointment in advance for all the weapons grade teeth grinding you’re about to do.

It’s Thanksgiving and while the weather in Pennsylvania is suitably lousy, the Dover and Birch families are coming together to celebrate. However, after when youngest children of each clan, Anna Dover and Joy Birch, ask to leave to go across the street to get something from the Dover household, a series of dread inducing events are set in motion when the two girls fail to return. Having seemingly vanished without a trace, tightly wound Keller Dover leads the search, but after his son informs him that there was a suspicious looking RV in the area earlier that’s since disappeared everyone fears the worst.
With the police informed, Detective Loki identifies the RV and arrests the driver, Alex Jones, who is revealed to have a greatly reduced IQ and seemingly has no idea about anything that’s going on. But with the police ruling out Jones as not having the mental capability to convincingly stage such a kidnapping, the quick tempered Keller doesn’t seem so sure and is outraged when the man is released. But while Loki puts his perfect, case solving record on the line to try and unravel a kidnapping that’s getting more strange and complex at every turn, Keller takes a more direct approach and kidnaps Jones in an attempt to beat the location of his daughter out of him.
However, Jones’ mental state is so divorced from reality that Keller’s plan to take care of this quickly soon drags on into days and he can feel his humanity draining away as his torture sessions fail to yield results. With both families on the verge of collapse and Loki finding that this case has far more going on under the surface than just a “simple” grab and even the red herrings he stumbles over in his path proves to have some relevance to the missing girls.

While Prisoners is obviously as grim as you’d expect a film with such a subject matter to be, Villeneuve manages to use the film as a launching pad to show off exactly how much of a balanced and nuanced filmmaker he really is. While some directors would focus primarily on the unimaginable emotions that would rise up and consume you if such an unthinkable thing struck your family, and others would lock in more to thriller or detective aspects of such a plot, a third group still might take this as a golden opportunity to present a soul searing, what-would-I-do scenario to create a sizable talking point around the film. Villeneuve, to his credit, does all three simultaneously and what’s more, utterly nails it, somehow balancing all three to create a genuinely knuckle grinding event that will stubbonly stay with you for days.
Of course, what ends out standing out the most is the morality tale that plays out when Hugh Jackman’s protection obsessed father takes matters into his own hands after he decides Jake Gyllenhaal’s cock sure detective is letting the case slip through his fingers. In fact, this entire section of the plot seems tailor-made into giving tough talking alpha males a sobering reality check when it comes to the kind of claims that they’d kill any wrong doer who tried to mess with their family. However, with so many variables flying around, the movie smartly refuses to give us anything approaching an easy answer – due to the usual sort of politics that plague places in high pressure, time sensitive situations, Keller isn’t wrong by being frustrated by the apparent lack of process being made by the police and Paul Dano’s addled Jones muttering a possible clue at a vital moment tips everything over the edge. But Villeneuve muddies the waters even further by erasing such simplistic concepts as right and wrong and turns everything into shades greyer than the rainy sky of a Pennsylvania Thanksgiving.

The cast is excellent. From Jackman’s righteous father who finds his determination fading as his soul erodes, to Gyllenhaal’s dogged cop whose slight smugness evaporates as the weight of the case becomes too much to bear, the two leads top a string of actors all at the top of their game. Dano’s childlike Jones manages to have you teetering on a knife edge about whether you believe he actually knows anything or not, Terence Howard and Viola Davis as the Birch parents find themselves brought into Keller’s vendetta, but wavering on how far they’re willing to go and Maria Bello’s Grace simply folds under the pressure of the situation. Everyone zigzags between hero and hypocrite and even the more odious characters of the piece can’t simply be labeled as good or bad once those last act twists start gearing up.
It’s all heavy stuff – like, really heavy stuff. But somehow Villeneuve never let’s the film wallow in its misery and keeps the plot light on its toes in order to make that hefty 153 minute runtime move like a 100 minute lightweight. In fact, when you combine a film that moves with such momentum with such a dread-laden tone, you can’t help but become convinced that you’re being lined up for an ending that delivers the kind of soul hollowing body blow usually reserved for the likes of Se7en, Eden Lake or Happy Games. As we drift into the second half of the film, the moments hit harder and harder. A box opened to reveal a nightmarish mix of bloody child’s clothes and snakes evokes alarm just as effortlessly as a full-blown horror film; a scene that sees Gyllenhaal speeding through heavy traffic in bad weather as blood clouds his vision will have you legitimate terrified and if the jaw dropping announcement of “You were there.” doesn’t chill you to the bone, then I truly believe you may need medical help.

A film that masterful gives you no easy outs, Villeneuve skillfully delivers a thriller that plays on your frustration and outrage to manipulate you into an overstimulated mess – and you’ll more than likely love him for it even though he’s just spent 2 and a half hours batting your emotions about like a cat with a mouse. Thought provoking and nerve shredding while never giving up on thrills and intelligence, you’ll definitely find yourself held captive by this one.
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟