I held off for a while on seeing “Prisoners” because the previews seemed to give away the whole movie: 1) Girls kidnapped, 2) dad (Hugh Jackman) tortures suspect (Paul Dano) who is obviously innocent, 3) the film gains a second meaning as he’s imprisoned by his rage and frustration.
But there’s more to it than that, so much so that “Prisoners” is actually one of the best thrillers of 2013. For one thing, Dano’s character isn’t entirely a red herring, and the plot twists and turns and ultimately holds together (although it is indeed a movie plot, with a few conveniences that wouldn’t be likely in real life).
For another, the film serves up a smorgasbord of acting, particularly from Jackman as the increasingly unhinged father, Jake Gyllenhaal as the twitchy detective, and Dano as the mentally challenged suspect.
One thing that hasn’t been talked about as much on the IMDB threads — understandably, since the plot and themes about the nature of evil are the juicy parts — is that this is a gorgeously shot movie. Although it’s never explicitly stated, it seems to take place in a small town in rainy, snowy Virginia at Thanksgiving time. There are several horror-movie-type locations; my favorite is when Gyllenhaal, investigating a suspect’s house, pushes aside a fridge to find a door leading to a crawlspace.
Combined with the scenes of the detective sitting at his computer looking at old newspaper clippings, and arguments between him and the police captain, “Prisoners” has a lived-in feel in the vein of “Zodiac” (where Gyllenhaal played an investigative reporter), although this film isn’t quite as good as that David Fincher-directed masterpiece.
Written by newcomer Aaron Guzikowski and helmed by French Canadian director Denis Villeneuve, “Prisoners” seems to take cues from the masterfully layered South Korean thrillers of the past decade, although I wouldn’t have objected to even more layers of story and characterization. Perhaps the script was tightened up to fit the mainstream American mold a bit better. Even after it ended, there were several things I still would’ve liked to know. There are “What happened next?” debates on IMDB with intriguingly nontraditional (but ultimately wrong, I think) theories.
Still, the amount of chatter alone indicates that “Prisoners” held captive a lot of moviegoers’ attention spans.