PRISONERS (2013) is a genre movie with a cast that looks like a row at the Academy Awards -- Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Maria Bello, Viola Davis, Terrence Howard, Melissa Leo and Paul Dano -- but to the credit of director Denis Villeneuve, a French Canadian, it doesnt look or feel like Hollywood product. At 153 minutes, Villeneuve seems to be taking cues from television, where series like THE WIRE or TRUE DETECTIVE explore a crime as investigated by a detective who behaves more like suspect than savoir. The lengthy running time is antithetic to a film industry where producers try to jam an extra screening per day into theaters, but standard for the TV industry, which isnt a slave to time, but quality. The additional 30 minutes affords actresses like Bello, Davis and Leo, whose scenes usually hit the cutting room floor, the opportunity to work and to help make the movie into something bigger than its parts. Written by Aaron Guzikowski, whose script landed on The Black List in 2009 and went through several potential leads (Mark Wahlberg, Leonardo DiCaprio) before Jackman proved game. Instead of tampering with the material or making it conform to a mass audience, the filmmakers protected it and the results are evident -- dark, heavy, unpredictable, un-Hollywood.
Posted on: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 21:05:00 +0000
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