Review of Prisoners (2013) by Eric F — 04 Aug 2014

Denis Villeneuve's "Prisoners" is a dark and gritty, mystery thriller chop full of brilliant acting performances and masterclass suspense writing.

The story takes place in a small town where two families who (while having Thanksgiving dinner together) have their youngest daughters abducted in broad daylight. As local law enforcement, Detective Loki is assigned to the case of the missing girls, Keller Dover (father of one of the girls) becomes so grief-stricken that he takes matters into his own hands... or so he believes.

At first glance, there doesn't seem to be much to the plot of "Prisoners", but in truth there's a lot going on in this movie. Everything from the background scenery, to characters' names, even single, individual lines of dialogue have more meaning than the characters ever let on. The title of the film itself has it's own kind of intricacies, it's a double-entendre: every character in this story is a prisoner to something -- whether it's grief, anger, fear, insomnia, or being literally held against their will -- every character has lost their freedom to something or someone else. The tension is a tight knot between the red herrings and the suspense of not knowing what's to come, and every riddle in the story is given an on-screen answer before the question is even asked; sparking similarities with films like David Fincher's "Seven", the Coen brothers' "No Country For Old Men", Jonathan Demme's "The Silence Of The Lambs", M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village", and Alfred Hitchcock's "Shadow Of A Doubt" and "Psycho".

With the look and feel of a gritty suburban murder mystery and the nail-biting emotion of a good detective novel, "Prisoners" makes a great example of how modern day thrillers have not lost their gumption (or their grotesquery).