Movie Review: Prisoners (2013)

When a movie gets a nomination for cinematography, it sometimes makes me wonder how the actual movie is, you know, besides the fancy camerawork. Prisoners excels at both being good camera-wise, as well as delivering a good, but really creepy story. Prisoners stars Jake Gyllenal and Hugh Jackman. Jake's character plays a cop who has to help Hugh out, when one of his daughters goes missing on Thanksgiving. Why do I say thanksgiving? Well, honestly, I thought that the opening setting of thanksgiving was kind of a weird way to set up this movie. This is a great story, but the opening with a holiday sets off the town as a happier movie then this is. Trust me, there is very little enlightment in this movie. Hugh's family is over at the neighbors house for thanksgiving. All of a sudden, Jackman's daughter and one of the neighbors daughters goes missing. Yeah, no introductory segment, just one second they go outside, then their gone. Then Gyllenal gets involved with the situation. They track down this SUPER creepy guy named Alex Jones. He only has an IQ of a ten year old. So, automatically the conclusion is made that he couldn't have pulled off the abduction with his lack of intelligence. This sets Hugh Jackman's role off, this is where we see is character become a lot darker and more in depth. Hugh and Jake were really the only roles that stole each scene from the movie. Everytime I saw Gyllenal, my eyes were automatically diverted to his character. He's just so fascinating, he has lots of layers to him. I didn't really think too much of his acting in the first hash of the movie. However, by the end of the movie, his "inner demons" (quoting Raging Bull here), begin to come out. We start to realize that he isn't just a young, upbeat guy. This dude takes in the case's problems as his own. This movie also has some really unsettling imagery. I'm not going to give any of the film away, but Alex Jones and the disfigured face. Let's just say, I read online that the movie almost earned an NC-17 rating for those pictures. Overall, Prisoners does a good job of showing us a good borderline-horror tale that excels in acting and recognition for the picture of the movie. Three stars.