Prisoners (2013) * *

Directed by:  Denis Villenueve

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Terrance Howard, Viola Davis, Melissa Leo, Paul Dano, Maria Bello

Prisoners is a gloomy film about the disappearance of two young girls in a rural Pennsylvania town.   When I say gloomy, I'm not just talking about the tone.  There is not one day of sunshine.    Its characters are made to walk around in drenching rainstorms and snow. I hope there was plenty of coffee, blankets, and hot chocolate on set. 

It's also a film in which the parents of the disappeared act as maniacal and unsympathetic as the alleged kidnappers.  There isn't one scene in which the adults discuss the issue or express their emotions in healthy ways.    Prisoners would be a wet dream for all of those macho people who claim something to the effect of, "If anyone touched my kid, I would beat him to within an inch of his life," or something equally disturbing.  Guys like Keller Dover (Jackman) would be their patron saint. 

Prisoners doesn't wait long to go the glum route.   The very opening shot is a voiceover of a man saying an Our Father followed by a fatal shooting of a deer.   The voice is Keller's, the shooter is his son, and as they ride along the highway with the deer carcass in the truck bed, Keller expresses how proud he is of his son.    This Keller is a piece of work.    He is an independent contractor and gun lover, which fits into his future schedule perfectly, and he fills his basement with stockpiles of supplies in case the apocalypse comes or something.   He either scowls or growls when he isn't screaming.   I sense if his daughter wasn't kidnapped, he would've found some other dangerous way to release his hostility.

It's Thanksgiving Day.   Keller's family visits with his friend Franklin's (Howard) family.  Keller's daughter and Franklin's daughter are kidnapped seemingly from an upstairs bedroom.   A suspicious old RV that was seen in their neighborhood is soon tracked down by the cop assigned to the case, Detective Loki (Gyllenhaal), who spends his Thanksgiving alone in a Chinese restaurant.    The driver, Alex Jones (Dano), is arrested and despite no physical evidence, Keller is convinced he is the kidnapper.    Jones wears glasses, can barely comprehend questions, speaks in a high-pitched squeal, and appears to be guilty, which of course means that he may not be.     Because there is no evidence, Alex is not charged in the girls' disappearance and is set free.     An outraged Keller follows him home and then kidnaps him as he's walking his dog.

What happens next to Alex is ugly and gruesome.  Keller, with rather reluctant help from Franklin, takes Alex to an abandoned apartment complex left to him by his late father and beats the holy hell out of him.   For days, he brutalizes Alex until his face resembles the meat Rocky Balboa pounded on.   He then conducts further elaborate means of torturing Alex.   Keller says he is trying to extract information, but to me he is simply behaving like the violent sadist that he is.   At this point, Prisoners takes a wrong turn.

Because Keller is so brutal, it becomes difficult to root for him.   It is difficult to root for any of the adults here.  Franklin expresses his reluctance through weak pronouncements like, "This is just wrong," but he decides to help Keller anyway.   Keller's wife spends her days heavily medicated lying in bed.     The issue here is that Keller and company have now committed the same crimes they accuse Alex of.    Many viewers will probably agree with Keller and even cheer him on.   Others may look on dismay.     We can understand Keller's desperation even if we don't agree with his tactics.   The fact that Keller prays before he beats on Alex some more means that he's an OK guy underneath it all, right?     Not so much.   

The pity is that I found myself disliking Prisoners but I wasn't disinterested.  Loki's investigation takes several twists and turns, but the underlying desire to find the girls keeps him going.  There is inherent suspense in such a story and Prisoners is no different.  Considering how overwritten Loki's character is, it's to Gyllenhaal's credit that he is able to keep up with all of his issues.  He is lonely, has facial tics, and has been run ragged by the search.  Plus, he has to deal with Keller screaming at him whenever the two find themselves in the same room together.  At least Loki wasn't dealing with personal demons as well, which is standard in many police procedurals.  

Jackman tries hard to keep up with all of his character's issues also and his character has plenty of them, including a sudden recurrence of alcoholism.  It isn't fair to weigh a character down with that much baggage, but Jackman still maintains his considerable screen presence and does what he can with such an unsympathetic character.   Aside from one scene in which she tries to coax information out of Alex through calm means, Viola Davis' Nancy has little to do except watch from the sidelines.   The same could be said for Grace (Bello).     It's a shame more wasn't done with Franklin, who hints at being a voice of reason, but he goes disappointingly goes along with the crowd.     It would've been interesting to see an internal conflict grow between the two sets of parents because of their disagreement over Alex's treatment, but it is sidestepped.  

Ultimately, Prisoners is weighed down under its own gloom.   It lays it on so thick that the movie never recovers. There have been plenty of strong movies made about parents dealing with kidnapped children, especially 1983's Without A Trace, which gave us a mother who tries to hold her life together as the prospect of finding her missing child grows dimmer.   The people in Prisoners don't seem capable of that.