Excellent combination of tense drama and edge-on-your-seat thriller

Rating: 9/10 (20 February 2017)

Being a little familiar with the work of director Denis Villeneuve, I had high expectations for this film. And with Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal starring, I was more then curious what they could pull off in a dramatic movie. Turned out my expectations where surpassed!
Prisoners start with Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) and his family celebrating Thanksgiving with their friends, the Birch family. All is well with both families but when Keller's daughter goes outside to play with Franklin Birch's (Terrence Howard) daughter and they go missing, the lives of both families turn into a nightmare. Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) is assigned to the case of the missing girls, but progress is slow and he has trouble finding leads. Keller Dover is disappointed in Loki, getting more and more desperate each day and decides to take matters in his own hands. But how far will he go?
Prisoners is an excellent movie that kept me on the edge of my seat for 2.5 hours. The movie looked stunning and the performances of the actors where through the roof. Jackman plays one of the best roles of his career, I really felt the desperation that Keller Dover was going through. But the best performance for me has to be Jake Gyllenhaal as detective Loki. I enjoyed every scene with him and was constantly rooting for him to find a new lead in the case, which gets more horrifying as the story progresses.
The only complaint I have with this movie is that sometime it feels like your watching two movies at once: an emotional drama and a scary thriller. Overall it does a good job at balancing between these two extremes but there are a few moments when the 'switch' between the two genres was a little to abrupt for me. And because I like the thriller aspect of the movie the most (parts of it remind me of Silence of the Lambs), there where a few times when I wished that they kept going on the thriller aspect instead of pulling back a bit.
That said this is a well made, emotionally exhausting movie that leaves you pondering about what you will do if you where put in the shoes of Keller Dover or detective Loki. So I highly recommend to watch this movie, but be prepared to be emotionally drained afterwards.