Better Than I Had Originally Thought, But Still Problematic

Rating: 7/10 (5 October 2018)

My first viewing of this film close to its original release made me pretty angry. I felt that the film had cheated me a little, by presenting itself as one thing and delivering something very different. My initial sense of the film was that it would drift into something horrific and exploitative, but Villeneuve muddied things by bringing what I thought was a rather crass morality to bear on the second half of the film. By the time we are confronted with the true sadist of the film, we have been suitably chastised for our vengeful impulses. My overarching sense was that Villeneuve had worked out the ideas behind this film, the politics, at the detriment of either thrills or plausible characterisation.
On this reviewing I was more open to the ebbs and flows of the drama. What really shifted on this second viewing was my attention. Whereas in the first film I found myself pinballing between Hugh Jackman's Keller and Paul Dano's Alex Jones. On this viewing I began to see the procedural aspects of the film, as Gyllenhaal's mannered Detective Loki came more sharply into view. As a representative of the law Loki is far from infallible, frequently prone to rash errors of judgement and is nonetheless dedicated enough to a code and ethics that he manages to ultimately rescue all those who can be saved. His is an obsessive pragmatism and close attention to deducible facts, as opposed to Jackman's rash torture-as-solution/vengeance approach.
What gives PRISONERS ending a bit more intrigue on this second viewing is the way in which it is Detective Loki who fully registers the horror of the belief system that has been grafted on and around the sadism of the film's villainous character. Without the Detective's more balanced approach to the justice, then Melissa Leo's Holly Jones' has won, as her aim seems to be that of the purest evil, to corrupt any potential or capacity for good within a person.
This is powerful, sombre, desperately depressing stuff, but I still wish it wasn't such awkward medicine to swallow. Villeneuve would go on to finesse his approach with his next film, the masterful exploitation thriller SICARIO - which balanced off the weighty portentousness of this film's moral posturing, with the full-depth experience of moral dislocation that PRISONERS still lacks.