"Prisoners" Movie Review
Ashley Turner
Jr. Staff Writer
“Prisoners” is a movie you do not want to miss. Even with some pretty gruesome and hard to watch scenes, this movie is one that you could not go without seeing. With a mix of well-known and beginner actors, it makes for a strong film.
During a Thanksgiving get together between two families, the Dovers (Hugh Jackman as Keller, Maria Bello as Grace, Dylan Minnette as Ralph and Erin Gerasimovich as Anna) and the Birches (Terrence Howard as Franklin, Viola Davis as Nancy, Zoe Borde as Eliza, and Kyla Drew Simmons as Joy) are cooking dinner and conversing. Joy and Anna want to go find Anna’s whistle at the Dover’s. Both sets of parents give the okay, and the girls leave. After a while, they begin to notice the girls still haven’t returned from their trip to the other house. Soon, it all turns to madness as the families begin scrambling to find their daughters. With foggy suburban Pennsylvania as the backdrop of the story, everything soon takes a dark path. Until the shocking ending, this movie will have you guessing at every single second.
After Anna and Joy disappear, Keller soon becomes engrossed in finding the girls. There is one question that you should ask yourself though. How far is too far to save the ones you love?
The overall grittiness of the movie is evident enough with the language-laced sentences of Keller. The painful to watch torturing of suspected kidnapper Alex Jones (amazingly portrayed by Paul Dano) is enough to make you want to intervene, even though it is just a movie.
Reminding viewers of a slew of kidnapping cases from the past 20 years, “Prisoners” is intense for a good part of the movie. Though, this movie does kind of remind me of a bad traffic jam. Just when things speed up and move at a steady pace, they begin to slow down again because of a minor detail best left on the side of the road.
Ignoring the slow progression of the film, the actors made their roles feel like it was themselves in the situation. Jake Gyllenhaal as the police officer investigating the case, Detective Loki, was a smart move on the casting director’s job because of Mr. Gyllenhaal’s ability to act as a true professional when playing a tough role such as Detective Loki. Hugh Jackman was the star of the movie, not just because he was the main character. Keller Dover’s spiral into insanity was beautifully portrayed by him. All the actors did a wonderful job in their roles, but Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal just blew me away because of the added roughness they brought into their characters.
All flaws aside, I would recommend “Prisoners”. This movie is appropriate for mature teens and adults because of the extreme violence, gore, and profanity. “Prisoners”, by any means, is not suitable, really, for anyone under the age of 13.
If you were ever a prisoner in a movie theater in the near future, make sure you become one while “Prisoners” is showing.
