Review: Prisoners

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

The best - or, at least, my favorite - thrillers tend to be more than just simple whodunnits, but rather movies that use mysteries to get at a bigger picture, such as "Zodiac," "Vertigo" or the films of David Lynch.

Denis Villeneuve's relentless "Prisoners" is a thriller of this sort. And although it treads some ground already covered by "Mystic River," "Zodiac" and "The Silence of the Lambs," the film has some interesting ideas of its own, an increasing sense of dread, some terrific performances and numerous plot twists and red herrings that not only tie together neatly at the film's end, but also deepen its themes.

For those not familiar with the French Canadian filmmaker, his previous work includes the haunting school shooting drama "Polytechnique" and the Best Foreign Film nominee "Incendies." While both of those films are powerful, somber dramas, I believe his American debut is his strongest work to date.

At the beginning of the picture, two families celebrate Thanksgiving together: survivalist and hunter Keller Dover (an intense Hugh Jackman) and his wife (Maria Bello) and pals Franklin (Terrence Howard) and Nancy Birch (Viola Davis). Their teenage children take their two younger daughters out for a walk, during which they attempt to climb onto a rusty old RV that is parked near their street. They all return to the house and it isn't until a short while later that the families discover that both young girls are missing.

The police are called and the inspector who shows up to investigate is Detective Loki (an excellent Jake Gylenhaal), whom we first meet as he eats Thanksgiving dinner alone at a Chinese restaurant. The RV is tracked down and its driver - Alex (Paul Dano) - is arrested. But Alex is mentally stunted and soon released after not being found to be a probable kidnapper.

The film becomes a sort-of tug of war between two personalities: Loki's calm intelligence and Keller's righteous anger, which leads to him kidnapping Alex and torturing him in the hopes of finding out where his daughter has been taken. Of course, no one in the film knows for sure that Alex had anything to do with the kidnapping. Keller says he knows, but does not appear convinced.

The two-and-a-half hour film is filled with plot twists, some of which are creepy, and clues, none of which are insignificant. Here is a thriller that actively makes you think. It's a good and, sadly, rare thing. You may think you know where it is all leading, but you most likely won't.

On the one hand, "Prisoners" is a skillfully made - and beautifully shot, courtesy of Roger Deakins - thriller and, on the other, it is a morality play, of sorts, that made me think of Lars Von Trier's "Dogville," which may not appear to be the most likely point of comparison. But both films question the acceptability of cruelty toward others during difficult circumstances, whether it's grief (in the case of "Prisoners") or economic despair ("Dogville").

The entire cast of Villeneuve's film is pretty terrific. Gylenhaal gives his best performance in a while and it's not as easy as it may look. Sometimes, an understated performance can be trickier than a showier one. And Jackman is frighteningly committed as the humanly flawed father of one of the missing girls. Even the bit players give it their all, including Dano and Melissa Leo as Alex's aunt.

It's a rare thing to find a thriller this smart, intense and skillfully made. It's the real deal.