WHO’S IN IT?
Hugh Jackman (Les Miserables), Jake Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain), Viola Davis (The Help), Maria Bello (A History of Violence), Terrence Howard (Crash), Melissa Leo (The Fighter), Paul Dano (There Will Be Blood)
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
Denis Villeneuve (Incendies), director; Aaron Guzikowski (Contraband), writer; Kira Davis (Chasing Liberty), Broderick Johnson (The Blind Side), Adam Kolbrenner (Deadfall) and Andrew A. Kosove (Insomnia), producers; Jóhann Jóhannsson (Mama), composer; Roger Deakins (Skyfall), cinematographer; Joel Cox and Gary Roach (Gran Torino), editors
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
At a normal Thanksgiving dinner, the six-year-old daughter of small-town carpenter Keller Dover (Jackman) goes missing along with her friend. Deep into the investigation, led by young and brash Detective Loki (Gyllenhaal), Dover learns of an RV owned by a young guy named Alex Jones (Dano) which was in the area when the girls went missing. Feeling let down by the police, Dover kidnaps him and keeps him prisoner, forcing him to reveal where the girls are. However, the more he tries to get Alex to confess, the closer he gets to losing his sense of right and wrong…
WHY SHOULD YOU BE EXCITED?
From playing prisoner 24601 to starring in a film called Prisoners, Hugh Jackman leads a ensemble cast of heavyweight actors who can more than carry their own baggage in this new crime thriller. Consisting of Oscar-nominees Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis and Terrence Howard, as well as winner Melissa Leo and non-nominees Maria Bello and Paul Dano – you have to feel sorry for Dano in the trailer when he’s listed with the actors, even Bello is listed as a Golden Globe-nominee – this small but effective group is nothing less than the main attraction.
It’s an impressive haul for director Denis Villeneuve, the Canadian director recently nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for 2011’s Incendies. That film won pundits and acclaim from across the board, but even though it was pipped by Denmark’s In A Better World its success was enough to give Villeneuve enough confidence to make his follow-up an ensemble piece with some gripping topics.
The investigation of a child’s disappearance, and the emotional weight it has on the child’s parents, is nothing entirely new and has been done to great effect in films like Changeling and Gone Baby Gone. But it is still hard for any parent to even think of the possibility that their child could be taken from you in the blink of an eye and even harder when it seems that no-one, particularly the police force tasked with finding them, seems to care or do it efficiently. What makes it even better drama is how it drives the parents over the edge, as is demonstrated in Prisoners when Jackman’s disgruntled father captures a suspect and keeps him hostage in exchange for information about his daughter’s whereabouts. If people like this go to great extremes to get their kids back, are they even worthy of having kids in the first place?
It’s one of many questions that Prisoners seems to tackle, and tackle even better through its visuals. Roger Deakins is the cinematographer behind the camera – already a behind-the-scenes star himself, he’s responsible for the visual wonders of Skyfall, The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford and just about every Coen Brothers movie out there. With Prisoners, he once again seems to have captured the mood and use of light perfectly which is set to make for a visually interesting feature film.
With its highly-talented cast and crew, Prisoners is a thriller that has everything going for it and more – let’s just hope it delivers on that promise.
