MOVIE REVIEW - PRISONERS Release Date: 17th October 2013 Rating: MA15+ Director(s): Denis Villenuve Stars: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Maria Bello, Terrance Howard, Viola Davis, Paul Dano & Melissa Leo Run Time: 153 min’s Trailer: bit.ly/GKgFll Score: 3¼ out of 5 Right, so imagine a quadruple length big screen episode of CSI or Criminal Minds with an all-star Hollywood cast … & that’s pretty much Prisoners. Jackman plays a family man named Keller, who’s married to Bello’s Grace. They live in a quiet Pennsylvania town, & the film starts out with them & their kids having Thanksgiving Day lunch at the house of their neighbours & best friends (Terrence Howard & Viola Davis). After lunch, the couples’ two 5 or 6y.o. daughters head outside to play & quite simply dont come back. Once the families realise the girls have disappeared, one of the older siblings reveals he saw them playing near an unfamiliar RV parked on the street. Cue both families naturally going nuts as they race to find the RV in question. Eventually a police detective (Gyllenhaal) tracks down the RV, only to discover the driver (Dano) has the mental age of a 10y.o. & there’s not one shred of evidence of the girls having ever been in the RV. Keller, believing the appearance of the RV is just too much of a coincidence to ignore, is filthy that the driver has been released. So he summons his inner Wolverine & abducts the driver, with the aim of torturing the girls’ location out of him. Look, this flick tries to fly beyond the big-screen procedural that it essentially is, desperate to dig deep into the moral dilemma presented by the base protective nature of all parents. And whilst the performances are all actually really strong (particularly Jackman as the bible-toting hunter & Gyllenhaal in creepy & driven mode), this really is no more than an abduction procedural that with a shorter running time & better script perhaps could have delivered a knock-out punch!! Don’t get me wrong, as a parent of 2 young girls I could certainly empathise with Keller’s state of mind & desperation … but I can’t help but feel the director/editor/screenwriter missed a golden opportunity here. Also, be warned, whilst the images on Criminal Minds & the like are relatively sanitised considering their subject matter, this flick certainly doesn’t hold back. The torture scenes are a tough watch, & the state of the driver’s face after said beatings is not for the feint-stomached.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 09:56:55 +0000
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