'Prisoners' Holds You Captive

Rating: 8/10 (1 January 2014)

Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) is a working class family man with a loving wife (Maria Bello), teenage son, and six-year-old daughter. On Thanksgiving, while at their friends' (Terrence Howard and Viola Davis) house, Dover's daughter Anna, and her friend, Joy, go out to play. They never come back. After a police search, Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) arrests a disturbed man, Alex Jones (Paul Dano), for the kidnapping. After Jones is released with no charges, Dover kidnaps him to get his own answers, using any means necessary before time runs out.
Dover isn't a man yielding some unknown fighting skills that he whips out on bad guys to get answers throughout the course of the movie. This isn't that type of film. He's simply a broken, desperate father in search of his daughter. He doesn't sleep, or even really blink, while the circles under his eyes become just as dark as the narrative. "Prisoners" is both parts a gritty detective story and vigilante thriller, and it works on both levels. The performances here, especially Jackman and a chilling Dano, elevate this to one of the better ensembles of the year. The cinematography by Roger Deakins and Director Denis Villeneuve shows a quiet, isolated small-town (constantly drenched in rain since the girls' disappearance) that makes all the unveiling of secrets that much more unnerving.
Perhaps "Prisoners" most valuable asset is the question it asks audiences: How far will you go for your family's protection? While Jackman's Dover will go to increasingly violent lengths to find his daughter, Franklin Birch (Terrence Howard) represents the other side of the moral coin. Birch pleas to him to leave it to the police to investigate the disappearance of their daughters. Are you a better parent if you sit back and wait or take the law into your own hands? While audience members may root for Dover as he carries out his vigilante investigation, they may soon see the kind of toll it can take on a person to commit such violence.
"Prisoners" is an engrossing mystery that will stay with you days after viewing it. The film isn't built around a "twist" ending; half way through you may know where it is heading, but it doesn't take away from the excitement or tension of watching it all unfold. The moral issues raised in the film about family, religion, and the law, make this more than just an entertainment experience. Once the credits roll, it will make you look at yourself—especially if you have children—in a different light.