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Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners evokes memories of Hollywood’s greatest modern thrillers as two men – a father and a police officer – take very different approaches in their attempts to discover the truth behind the abduction of a pair of children.
Denis Villeneuve’s captivating child abduction thriller Prisoners dares to challenge its audience to a sprawling, two-handed narrative and achieves its ambitious intent with the grace of a string quartet, easily satisfying those with the shortest of attention spans. Built on the foundations of enigmatic plot twists, the film is propelled with ceaseless motion by the unrelenting desire of detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) and grieving father Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) to discover a truth that appears more and more unattainable. Their separate missions entangle and infuse as the story throws us one way and then the other, the film making masterful use of the plot twist. Alfred Hitchcock would be proud. Indeed, the film was nominated for Best Cinematography at the 86th Academy Awards but would sit quite comfortably next to the Best Film contenders. Prisoners really is that good.
Written by Daniel Stephens
Directed by: Denis Villeneuve
Written by: Aaron Guzikowski
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Melissa Leo, Paul Dano
Released: 2013
Genre: Thriller
Country: USA / IMDB
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Prisoners was viewed courtesy of Amazon Prime Instant Video
The narrative in Prisoners is certainly sprawling, but for me it was too much so. I found myself bored despite the fertile subject matter and the fine acting. To me it was silly that I guessed the most ridiculous plot twist and that turned out to be the ending. I’ve been a much bigger fan of Villeneuve’s more recent work, Enemy and Sicario. I think those are much more effective executions of the slow burn thriller.