Prisoners is a very calculated title for the story it tells. Prisons in this movie come in many forms, be they physical or mental. Prisoners takes tough, uncompromising subject material and weaves in a twisty whodunit caper that keeps the audience guessing until the final third. By the end, some of these people could only wish for solitary confinement.
Thanksgiving, the time for families to come together. In this case, the two families are the Dovers: Dad Keller (Hugh Jackman), Mom Grace (Maria Bello) son Ralph (Dylan Minnette), and daughter Anna (Erin Gerasimovich) and the Birches: Father Franklin (Terrence Howard), Mother Nancy (Viola Davis), and daughters Eliza (Zoe Borde) and Joy (Kyla Drew Simmons). After dinner, Joy and Anna go out to play and never come back home. Frantic, they call the police who assign Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) to the case. After initial interrogation of main suspect Alex Jones (Paul Dano) proves fruitless, Keller decides to take matters into his own hands.
Prisoners strongest moments revolve around the main child abduction and how it affects the people sucked into its vortex. The reaction is different for each character and very believable: Keller gets violent and irrational, Grace takes drugs because of her depression, Franklin is sad and buries his head in the sand, and Nancy is silent and seething. Because of the desire for catharsis, snap judgments on the suspects must be made without any room for doubt. Even when insurmountable evidence is given for one suspect, because no body is found, some characters stay the course. Though the subject matter is bleak and very abusive, Prisoners takes it very seriously and makes character actions at worst understandable for the audience. By giving each parent a different perspective on the story, Prisoners can draw the audience in despite involving many people’s worst fears.
The narrative, though slightly weaker, is still very good at hiding the endgame and main abductor. In fact, the final reveal includes at least a couple unexpected clever reveals on top of the main one. There are also a couple of times where Detective Loki almost stumbles upon Keller’s interrogation of Alex and by some quick thinking he evades the detective. Only a couple of times did I feel like there were some obvious plot choices to keep the story moving forward, but they are forgiven for how much care is taken in the first part of the film to set up the complicated situation. Solving the case is also not without its set of scares, as there are some dark rooms and empty houses that only horror fans could dream of.
Even more than Les Miserables, Hugh Jackman is a force of nature here as a proud broken man driven to find his daughter. Jackman stays intense without ever going cartoonishly crazy, and delivers one of the more memorable performances of the year. Alongside him is Jake Gyllenhaal, who adds to his cop credits with one who is more tired and detached but obsessed with solving puzzles. Paul Dano is very effective at playing creepy and meek simultaneously. Terrence Howard, Viola Davis, David Dastmalchian, and Melissa Leo give strong support.
Prisoners is not an easy watch. There are lots of demons covered in this film, and no easy answers are really presented. However, it is never boring, and most of the time extremely engaging, clever, and poignant. Next time, Detective Loki should call on his Avengers namesake for help; superpowers would have cracked this case in 5 minutes.