Spoilers will be glued to the screen.
If you ever want to see Hugh Jackman at his very best performance, I would debate this would be the movie you need to see. Mind you, this is not an easy movie to watch but it’s so well made and its characters are so compelling that it’s difficult to stop watching it. There’s so many great performances in here and yet the most twisted thing about this film is how the plot begins, builds and slowly burns before giving you one hell of a revealing ending. You should watch this one yourself.
Prisoners (2013) was directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Aaron Guzikowski. Two families get together for Thankgiving. Keller (Hugh Jackman) and Grace Dover (Maria Bello) are good friends with Franklin (Terrence Howard) and Nancy Birth (Viola Davis). Their two little girls are best friends and their teenage kids get along as well. Everything seems ideal until the two little girls go missing.
As a result, a full search starts as Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) enters the picture. One of the teenagers remembers the little girls playing near an old RV. When police track down the vehicle, the driver tries to flee and the police end up arresting him only to let him go later. This seems to trigger something in Keller that unhinges him. As leads start to become thinner, Keller tries to take justice into his own hands.
That’s where we’re going to stop. The movie basically takes you on a strange turn that would seem enough to give it meat but it does not stop there. Yes, it is brutal what happens and what Keller ends up becoming for the sake of finding his child, but contrary to what other movies might want you to think his actions do him more harm than good. As the pressure mounts and the movie slowly burns down its leads we’re not aware that we ourselves are being given clues and small facts that will tie in to the truth.
When it all seems like the very last act is one of frustration and accepting there’s nothing more to do, we are slowly exposed to increasing reveals that a few things that seemed random are connected. As much as I’d like to say more, the fact is we’re going down a rollercoaster of a reveal. The last act of this film is a mindbender of a reveal, a twist and a desperate ending. This is one of those cases in which you want to walk away from how dark this film gets but you should hang on to see what’s about to be revealed.
Strongly recommended with reservations. The movie is great overall, but it does go to very dark places. The performances are engaging, the characters feel real and solid, the mystery itself has legs and it almost feel like we’re watching a real case. The last act is such a great satisfying conclusion as clues start adding up. The ending scene is also fitting to the theme. You kind of want to revisit the film itself to see the whole thing from a different angle but it’s raw and dark enough the first time around. Worth a watch, but it’s not an easy one. Once you get started it’s harder to stop watching.
That will do for now.
Never Think Impossible 