Directed by : Denis Villeneuve
Imdb link -> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392214/
Hugh Jackman's dominated movie about the issue of father's deeds against doubted kidnapper.
Read at your own risk, the post is full of spoilers.
Keller Dover's (Hugh Jackman) daughter as well as her friend goes missing. Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) gets the case in his hands, having a record of not losing any in past, but this time he's gonna find it real tough. When one suspect Alex Jones (Paul Dano) gets arrested, Keller believes he is the one to kidnap the children, but Alex comes across as a mentally challenged teenager. Keller believes he is faking it, and therefore when Alex gets released from custody, Keller takes it to himself to find the girls. Is Alex really the kidnapper, or Keller is falling in some deep trap ?
The narration begins with a happy fun atmosphere before the two girls go out of house and are found missing. At places, the pace is slow but I didn't mind it as I was kept interested in knowing whether Alex is really having no information about the girls or he is lying.
The best scene has to be when the tables are turned, and Keller is doing what probably the kidnapper might had been doing to the girls. He gets Alex kidnapped at his own old house, and tortures him in various ways, which as a viewer was hard for me to see even, or Keller's friends in the movie who initially do help Keller before realising that Keller has gone a very wrong path.
But if you think about the story from Keller's point of view, then his reasons to doubt Alex are very strong, firstly the whisper Alex does when he gets released from jail, and then the thing he does with dog at night. Infact, I still couldn't understand why he didn't tell Keller much earlier about the small secret he knew which he reveals much later at end. Unless, a mentally challenged person can hide secrets for long, still felt it was kinda of strange point in the screenplay.
Another point that I didn't get was who was the person who entered Keller's house and ran out of window. Also, I would say to see the real kidnapper and the motive behind.. made me slightly dissappointed, maybe I was thinking something completely out of box will come. That character was shown just 2-3 times in whole movie until then, so it was tackled well in that regards atleast. Mellisa Rao did act pretty well, to not make any doubt come over her in those few scenes.
Hugh Jackman made Keller character look tremendous especially when the worried father transforms into a deadly 'tell me or you suffer' mode. All scenes where he tortures Alex, and when he avoids Detective Loki before yelling out his anger at him in car were fantastic.
Jake Gyllenhaal gave good performance as Detective, the humorous scenes at office where he asks for extra days to interrogate Alex which he doesn't get, and later he shows his anger at him. His silent way of noticing everything, and reaching the clues. The snake scene was highly scary for me, for well known reasons.
The supporting cast did fairly well too. Keller's wife could had been given more scenes, felt she was sidelined using her health as issue after girls got kidnapped.
The ending was great too, you wonder for a moment if Loki would go and save Keller, but I guess he would definately do that, its whether in those few seconds Keller survives and doesn't die. The reason for such ending must had been to ask audience to fill it in the way they thought about the deeds done by Keller to Alex, the ones who felt Keller's actions were bad inspite of the motive behind it would say Loki would let Keller die, and the other ones who felt Keller was at heart a caring father wanting his girl back would want Loki to save Keller.
Overall, Prisoners may not be a pacy thriller, yet its a powerful film that works for the main lead performances, and specially the narration of the story where an important character suddenly transforms and just shocks you at times with his actions. In the end, its you who decide which way the film should end, and the question is asked 'Without proper evidence, is it right to treat someone as guilty?'
Imdb link -> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392214/
Hugh Jackman's dominated movie about the issue of father's deeds against doubted kidnapper.
Read at your own risk, the post is full of spoilers.
Keller Dover's (Hugh Jackman) daughter as well as her friend goes missing. Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) gets the case in his hands, having a record of not losing any in past, but this time he's gonna find it real tough. When one suspect Alex Jones (Paul Dano) gets arrested, Keller believes he is the one to kidnap the children, but Alex comes across as a mentally challenged teenager. Keller believes he is faking it, and therefore when Alex gets released from custody, Keller takes it to himself to find the girls. Is Alex really the kidnapper, or Keller is falling in some deep trap ?
The narration begins with a happy fun atmosphere before the two girls go out of house and are found missing. At places, the pace is slow but I didn't mind it as I was kept interested in knowing whether Alex is really having no information about the girls or he is lying.
The best scene has to be when the tables are turned, and Keller is doing what probably the kidnapper might had been doing to the girls. He gets Alex kidnapped at his own old house, and tortures him in various ways, which as a viewer was hard for me to see even, or Keller's friends in the movie who initially do help Keller before realising that Keller has gone a very wrong path.
But if you think about the story from Keller's point of view, then his reasons to doubt Alex are very strong, firstly the whisper Alex does when he gets released from jail, and then the thing he does with dog at night. Infact, I still couldn't understand why he didn't tell Keller much earlier about the small secret he knew which he reveals much later at end. Unless, a mentally challenged person can hide secrets for long, still felt it was kinda of strange point in the screenplay.
Another point that I didn't get was who was the person who entered Keller's house and ran out of window. Also, I would say to see the real kidnapper and the motive behind.. made me slightly dissappointed, maybe I was thinking something completely out of box will come. That character was shown just 2-3 times in whole movie until then, so it was tackled well in that regards atleast. Mellisa Rao did act pretty well, to not make any doubt come over her in those few scenes.
Hugh Jackman made Keller character look tremendous especially when the worried father transforms into a deadly 'tell me or you suffer' mode. All scenes where he tortures Alex, and when he avoids Detective Loki before yelling out his anger at him in car were fantastic.
Jake Gyllenhaal gave good performance as Detective, the humorous scenes at office where he asks for extra days to interrogate Alex which he doesn't get, and later he shows his anger at him. His silent way of noticing everything, and reaching the clues. The snake scene was highly scary for me, for well known reasons.
The supporting cast did fairly well too. Keller's wife could had been given more scenes, felt she was sidelined using her health as issue after girls got kidnapped.
The ending was great too, you wonder for a moment if Loki would go and save Keller, but I guess he would definately do that, its whether in those few seconds Keller survives and doesn't die. The reason for such ending must had been to ask audience to fill it in the way they thought about the deeds done by Keller to Alex, the ones who felt Keller's actions were bad inspite of the motive behind it would say Loki would let Keller die, and the other ones who felt Keller was at heart a caring father wanting his girl back would want Loki to save Keller.
Overall, Prisoners may not be a pacy thriller, yet its a powerful film that works for the main lead performances, and specially the narration of the story where an important character suddenly transforms and just shocks you at times with his actions. In the end, its you who decide which way the film should end, and the question is asked 'Without proper evidence, is it right to treat someone as guilty?'
2 Comments
The person who entered their house was Bob Taylor. He's the same guy who was chased by Loki. Also he is the one who had mazes drawn in his house, and kept children's blooded clothes and snakes in the container.
ReplyDeleteNow his case is something like, he was kidnapped by *That man with the maze locket*, and now Bob Taylor is stealing/purchasing children's clothes, painting them with pig blood (Remember those pigs that Loki comes through in Bob's house?) and keeping those clothes along with snakes in those containers. This is shown to be psychological, as the same happened to him once.
Now, he entered Keller's house to steal the clothes of Keller's daughter. In a scene Loki finds one socks down the window of Keller's house. And the other socks from the pair is found in the container. Remember when Loki shows photos of blooded clothes to Keller, Keller identifies one photo that has his daughter's blooded socks. It belongs to that pair of socks. I mean one of them fell down the window when Taylor was stealing them, and the other one is found blooded in the container.
Hmm yea.. right. I missed this plot completely.
ReplyDelete