Prisoners (2013) — Read Along
“Pray for the best, but prepare for the worst”
22nd September 2022
Long before Denis Villeneuve wowed a brand new audience with his vision of “Dune” last year he’d already directed four feature length films between 1998 and 2010 before taking the helm of “Prisoners” here, in 2013. In the same year came the release of another collaboration with Jake Gyllenhaal in “Enemy” (a film I’ve seen but don’t recollect) before bringing us all back up to date with three remarkable films that I certainly do remember with great fondness, “Sicario” in 2015, the remarkably and depressingly brilliant “Arrival” a year later before a year later again meeting the Blade Runner fan in me with the sequel to the masterpiece, “Blade Runner 2049”. I didn’t particularly care for Dune (couldn’t settle into it) and whilst Sicario is good, Arrival is great, masterpiece category great. So it was, with an evening to spare and a film watching couple of hours needed, that I returned to his creation of nearly a decade ago and was well rewarded by an incredible first hour of a film that I’d completely mistaken for another!
You see, the film I “remembered” took place in a lighthouse (cellar/main rooms) and the tight confines whereby three or four characters are essentially locked in, and held prisoner, within a lighthouse. A quick cursory glance within The Matrix didn’t help me track down the mysterious film I’m convinced I watched as I am equally convinced that the title was very definitely “Prisoners”. So I was a little perplexed as the opening to this film veered nowhere near a coastal resort or a lighthouse and I was instead mesmerised by an opening hour of a film that was absolutely stunning but which petered away after the mid film reveal. But make no mistake this is still a fine film that jars awkwardly in all the right places, it just wasn’t the film that I’m starting to believe my frazzled mind simply made up!
Written by Aaron Guzikowski and nominated for a 2014 Academy Award for the incredible cinematography from the already two time Oscar winner Roger Deakins, Villeneuve helms a really intriguing film of loss and the incredible heartache no-one wishes to experience of dealing with a missing 6 or 7 year old child. As disturbing as that is, Prisoners is also a film about the loss of humanity, loss of rational thought, loss of perspective, morals, faith and particularly so a heart breaking loss of one’s own religion, which is the heartbeat of a theme that runs through the entirety of this 153 minute gem.
“Pray for the best and prepare for the worst” so says Hugh Jackman as the heartbroken devoted husband and father “Keller Dover” and equally devoted man of religion who opens the film with a mournful voice over of the “Lord’s Prayer”. Joining Jackman in a true ensemble cast are Hollywood stars of the past, present and presumably future, with the marquee names of the past all laying claim to real stand out headline portrayals of a grieving father and two similarly grieving mothers (Terence Howard, Viola Davis and Maria Bello respectively), as well as a thoroughly repugnant Police Detective (Jake Gyllenhaal), a horrifying portrayal of the chief murder suspect (Paul Dano) and actor Dylan Minnette who following his cameo here would go on to star in films inflicted upon me by my teenage son (“Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”, “Goosebumps” and “Don’t Breathe”) before we came full circle together nearly a decade later with his performance in this years reincarnation of the “Scream” franchise.
In a film of astounding central performances, it’s perhaps Jake Gyllenhaal’s portrayal of the gruff and dour “Detective Loki” that steals the show as his character is so “out of character” to a supposedly normal portrayal of the sympathetic, empathetic detective on the trail of the two missing girls. Loki is meticulous, driven, a desperate climber within the ranks and, as the film repeatedly endorses, never fails to find his target. But, and I may be misjudging it, his slicked back hair, neck and hand tattoos and top button of a blue shirt always fixed constantly reminded me of a felon/prisoner and perhaps that was the point. But what arguably wasn’t or isn’t is Gyllenhaal’s remarkable performance of cold dead eyed stares of disdainful dispassionate annoyance at any and everyone around him. Despite the heart breaking day by day countdown and fading possibility as to any possible rescue attempt, Loki’s scowls and mannerisms barely change in a performance perfectly in keeping with a very off kilter film.
Arguably Paul Dano too who, as chief suspect “Alex Jones”, is also described as having “an IQ of a 10 year old”, and who epitomises the graphic, up close and bloody physical violence of a film that mustn’t be ignored within a film that anchors such pain more in the cerebral, existential and spiritually human desires of being reunited with your own child. Dano would follow his horrifying performance here in Steve McQueen’s “12 Years a Slave” in the same year before entering Gotham City as “The Riddler” in this years “The Batman”, and all after first coming to my attention with his thunderous performance in Paul Thomas Anderson’s opus to America, “There Will Be Blood” in 2007.
Maria Bello (A History of Violence) and Terrence Howard (Crash) accompany Oscar winner Viola Davis (Fences) and the world’s greatest showman Hugh Jackman (X-Men, Logan, The Front Runner) in a film in which they could all lay claim to incredible central performances alongside Jake Gyllenhaal who from this film onward would see his star rise into the stratosphere with performances in so many highly recommended films: “Nightcrawler” through to “Everest”, “Nocturnal Animals”, “Life” and recently, “The Guilty”.
“Prisoners” is a disturbing film at times as it deals with the visceral anger and utter desperation at the loss of a loved one and is equally and graphically extremely violent at times too with rage fuelled human destruction. Through the cinematography of Roger Deakins and a yellow/brown hue amongst the constantly falling rain, the day by day heartbreak seeps through every pore of every character (except one) and is accompanied brilliantly by Johann Johannsson’s mournful, strings filled musical soundtrack eerily reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s final film “Eyes Wide Shut”.
And from Kubrick we finish with Radiohead and their mournful piano inspired song “Codex” that signals the final frames of a film that falls away after the reveal but which for an hour or so is intense, incredible and a portent to the greatness still to come from Denis Villeneuve.
The video linked in the middle of this article is from my Youtube channel “The Blackford Book Club” and as well as reading along with my review here you can also find this within my 7 volumes of “Essential Film Reviews Collection” on Amazon together with the self-published books pictured below.
All 16 of my titles are free to read should you have an Amazon Kindle “Unlimited” package.
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.
