When the trailer for Prisoners
appeared it looked like a solid thriller. The Oscar buzz which followed took me by
surprise as there was nothing from the trailer to indicate that they would be
making a run for gold.
I was always going to see Prisoners but the unexpected cries of brilliance from the cinema going public did pique my
interest.
PLOT: Following a Thanksgiving meal Anna Dover (Erin Gerasimovich)
and Joy Birch (Kyla Drew Simmons) go missing and the only clue to their whereabouts is an old
R.V driven by Alex Jones, (Paul Dano) a mentally impaired young man. Anna’s father Keller (Hugh Jackman) loses patience
with the investigation conducted by Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) and takes matters
into his own hands in an attempt to find his daughter. END PLOT
A film that focuses on missing
children should always be a tense affair however Prisoners only manages this in
short bursts. The early scenes between
Dover and Jones are genuinely nail-biting however they quickly peter out and
leave us with a hanging plot thread that no one really knows what to do with. It is thereafter ignored completely.
Prisoners lasts for 2hours 33mins
(IMDB) and although the film doesn’t feel slow the long running time does it no
favours whatsoever. I figured out the whereabouts
of the children very early on in the film.
This made the investigation into the girls’ disappearance drag and I
ended up watching Prisoners feeling more impatient that tense.
It did not help that the film
resorted to glaringly obvious clichés such as “conveniently timed phone call”
or the “desk tantrum that throws up a vital clue” to move the story along.
As I had figured out the culprit
long before the characters it meant that I couldn’t get on-board with their
actions. Detective Loki is probably the
most incompetent police officer in history and Keller Dover’s actions became unnecessarily
overdramatic.
There was no emotional engagement
with Keller Dover as his actions were simply wrong. The film tries to raise the question – what would
you be capable of doing to save your daughter – but it doesn’t do this
well. Instead of seeing a grieving
father desperate to find his child we see an obsessive man torturing a mentally
disabled boy for a period of five days.
Viola Davis (Nancy Birch) and Terence
Howard (Franklin Birch) fare much better in this regard. The Birches inner conflict and doubt has a
much greater effect than Jackman’s emotional bullying tactics to encourage their
involvement.
I will only acknowledge Maria Bello
to say that I actively dislike her in all her endeavours.
Jake Gyllenhaal is as dependable as ever
although Detective Loki is underwritten to the extent that his
first name is Detective. Loki’s
backstory is nothing more than a throwaway line about growing up in an
orphanage with dodgy priests. It is
probably a good thing that this little tit-bit of information was not explored as it
would create a whole other movie. The
constant blinking was incredibly distracting as it took me a
while to realise that this was a character trait and not Gyllenhaal having the onset of
glaucoma.
Paul Dano, Melisa Leo and David Dastmalchian
all provide very capable support to an already stellar cast.
The performances can’t really be
faulted. Jackman is as good as he has ever been and deserves the hype
surrounding his performance. Prisoners is
a good reminder that Jackman can and should be more than Wolverine.
If Jackman, Davis and Howard get award
nominations they will be deserved as the cast
carry the film. In lesser hands
Prisoners would have passed by unnoticed and it would have been no great loss
to cinema.
Prisoners is a decent film. The film looks good and the cast are excellent but
it is grossly overhyped. Prisoners gets
7/10. It will be watched again if I can
pick it up cheap on DVD but other than that Prisoners killed an afternoon in the cinema and nothing more.
