Disturbingly amazing

Rating: 10/10 (31 December 2015)

Prisoners has story and performance that are great just by themselves, though, together they are what makes the film a true gem of cinema. The premise is legitimately terrifying in its presentation. The weight, severity, and tension of the film feel so real that, at times, it does what every film should do; make its fiction appear as reality to you.
Though Jake Gyllenhaal is very good in this, I do feel that Hugh Jackman steals most, if not all, the attention with his performance. He's a really good in most of his other work, poor in some (more than likely bad story/bad direction), but it is in Prisoners he shows how much can come from his acting. I would equate it to the passion seen in his role as Jean Val Jean in Les Miserables. Perhaps that's what it is. He can be good with subtlety, however, it is in the passion of emotion that he does best. As Keller Dover he is nothing but passionate, yet, he is very real. He bursts out in anger in one scene, is told to calm, does so, and even apologizes for his outburst yet still persists with a degree of intensity that is clearly from being upset rather than just raw anger. There are many more scenes like this that succeed so well at removing you from just watching a movie and takes you on intimate experience of story telling that feels undeniably and hauntingly real. This is probably one of his best performances if not the principal one.
Few could get away with doing a film like this and call it good. Fewer doing so in exemplary fashion. This is one of the fewer. It's honestly very good actors with a very good director showing you human character in a narrative that is by no means an easy one to tell.