Prisoners

[MacGuffin]

Release date: September 20, 2013

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Melissa Leo, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Paul Dano

Directed by: Denis Villeneuve

Premise: A Boston man kidnaps the person he suspects is behind the disappearance of his young daughter and her best friend.

[Lottery]

There's a lot happening in that trailer but the synopsis suggests that maybe they crammed the first third of the film into 2.5 minutes.

[HeywoodRFloyd]

While watching the trailer I'm asking myself 'Holy shit, who was the DP for this?"

Lo and behold a quick IMDB search reveals it to be Deakins. In a class of his own.

[03]

hell yeah. im in.
looks like an original take on a bunch of other movies.

[pete]

casting of paul dano almost guarantees I know how the plot's gonna go

[HeywoodRFloyd]

What's the verdict folks? I'm in Aus and it opens in a month here but I've been eagerly anticipating this since Incendies.

[Ghostboy]

It's really good. Nothing new plot-wise, but it's handled so well, with so much measured severity, that it doesn't matter too much. It gets under your skin in a really unbearable way. At least it did for me. I could hardly take it.

[Brando]

I haven't seen it yet but everyone should be careful watching the trailers. There is a subtle detail in some of the trailers that if noticed could give away the movie.

[Kellen]

Jake Gyllenhaal killed it.

[samsong]

meh.

it's a well executed but conceptually tired, hackneyed thriller that believes it has a message that, in actuality, is as tepid as an afterschool special.  as far as the performances go, it's mostly drama class antics.  hugh jackman further proves he's the john barrymore of our time (in the sense that howard hawks once told john barrymore that he was the biggest ham in hollywood) and jake gyllenhaal, god bless his heart, gets an A for effort but is pretty mediocre here.  the rest of the cast is wasted.  paul dano plays a paint-by-numbers creep.  i thought this had a promising premise, one that had me intrigued back when the trailer first came out, but it squanders its potential and instead seems content to be an overlong, shitty episode of law & order.  i would say half the episodes i've seen on svu are more compelling than this. 

that said, this is probably the best movie that could've come from the screenplay, which i think fails on just about every level.  there are a few strong scenes, deakins's camerawork is typically brilliant, and villeneuve displays an adeptness at maintaining tone and tension despite the script.  i've only seen one other film of his that i remember liking a lot (maelstrom) and the amount of filmmaking savvy evident in prisoners is enough to pique my interest in his other work. 

[JG]

went into this only having seen the trailer once and knew nothing else, but the prospect of seeing hugh and jake overact for a couple of hours seemed promising. I didn't see Les Mis, but I did see the making-of that played before other movies last year, and Hugh just seems like the best dude. He definitely delivered, but the movie was much better than i could've imagined. a flawed script, but it provided the framework for the actors to really go for it. the acting across the board was strong. also, i couldn't believe how good it looked, and sure enough as the credits roll i find out its deakins. this is a great looking movie, even by his standards. worth seeing for that alone.

[Lottery]

Just caught it. Was an enjoyable little drama/thriller. Nothing new here and it kinda loses its urgency around the middle. There were a whole bunch of plot threads which didn't seem 'all-together' throughout the film. And there is sense of 'muhahaha here is my evil plan' near the end. Needed to be condensed definitely and sharpened up a little. Acting was good.
Did feel more like cop show than feature film at times.





EDIT/SPOILERS:

I did get a kick out of the whole 'Ha, the sex offender priest killed the husband'.

[Reel]

I really liked it. The common thread in most people's reactions seems to be 'we've seen it before', but I hadn't been this captivated by a thriller in some time. I have seen this movie, but I can't think of an example where the story and characters were this well executed, someone wanna jog my memory? Without going into what happens, I'll just say that I found the circumstances surrounding the kidnapping to be very interesting and fresh, regardless of the way it's revealed being a little trite. This really stirred something up in me and has stayed in my head for a few days after seeing it. I've been looking for someone who enjoyed it as much as me to talk about it with, but I'm just hearing alotta "nothing new". The one criticism I will throw out there is that every single solitary character in this is underwritten. It makes me wonder if they could have narrowed down the cast a bit, but I guess that'd make it less of 'whodunit?' Great atmosphere all the way through, might be the shittiest fall weather I've ever seen on screen.


SPOILER

Loki driving to the Hospital was the most exhilarating moment of cinema I can remember in recent memory. So many fucking emotions.

[Lottery]

SPOILER

SPOILER
Loki driving to the Hospital was the most exhilarating moment of cinema I can remember in recent memory. So many fucking emotions.

Yeah, that was tense. It was cool because I wanted the girls to die but by that scene I was like 'Don't die little girl! Stay alive for Jakey G!"


Good film overall.

[picolas]

letterboxd review:

i really enjoyed prisoners as an unambitious genre film that never stays in the same place for long. it has a lot of flaws and it turns into a bit of a twist machine in the final quarter which offsets its more interesting themes. i was left rattled and a little confused, but i was totally engaged for most of the ride.

i wish jackman hadn't resorted to big tough guy acting so much. his character comes off a little dumb and ridiculous as opposed to driven into monstrous acts by insane circumstances. i would love to see an alternate version where they cast a totally not intimidating guy in that role. seriously imagine if tom hanks played that character. how twisted would it be? how much more thought provoking? it's a lot easier to dismiss jackman for beating someone up because that's what we expect from him.

terrence howard resorted to whimpering so quickly.. super obvious performance for a character with more levels than that.

gyllenhaal was excellent. even with a very questionable haircut.

i still think villeneuve is a special director. he's really good at making everything seem real and seamless, but still magically cinematic. polytechnique is still his best by far (of what i've seen), but i think he could top it someday soon. at least he's dynamic. incendies was the opposite of prisoners in terms of its problems/pace.

oh and good title.