“Prisoners”
Directed by Denis Villeneuve
Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Hugh Jackman, Terrence Howard, Viola Davis, Paul Dano, Maria Bello, Melissa Leo, Dylan Minnette
Crime, Drama, Thriller
153 Mins
R

In Prisoners, Denis Villeneuve tactfully dangles each of his characters off the precipice of horror. They’re always about to cross an ethical line in the sand, nearing a brutal action beat, close to making a devastating choice… and then it quick-fades to black. Each cathartic movement is truncated in a manner as frustrating and poignant as Jake Gyllenhaal‘s overly pronounced blinks. In a film this precisely designed, everything has multiple layers of meaning, so it’s no happy accident that this closing-of-the-door trend spans the entire film. Considering the dark material at play, it seems clear that this stylish tactic – aided by gorgeously glum cinematography from Roger Deakins – amounts to a statement about the solitude of choice and the all-enveloping difficulty of isolation within a mind that has become irrevocably haunted. But the true strength within the film is not in revealing a stanant answer to the questions posed throughout the film but in inviting us to participate in our own private study of guilt under duress.

Hugh Jackman‘s Keller Dover has lost his daughter. Taken after Thanksgiving supper, her whereabouts are as much a question mark as the identity of the culprit. On the alignment chart, Dover is chaotic neutral – a raging, by-all-means-type who stomps over whatever moral boundary stands in the way of his getting his daughter back. Jackman harnesses unbridled rage in a manner that he’s never quite been able to touch upon before. This is the darkness we’ve always expected of the man behind the Wolverine and his performance here is surely one of his finest. But Dover is not the only character at play (or even the central one strictly speaking) nor is he the only one intent on finding his lost child.

Circling him is Gyllenhaal’s Detective Loki, a by-the-books lawman with a keen eye for detail, a nagging sense of duty, and a strong foothold in legality. He’s a man doing his best in an impossible situation, limited by the law, and driven by a need for closure. Lawfully good to a T, Loki tries to examine the equation from all angles but just can’t seem to get a read on why the pieces aren’t properly fitting into the puzzle. Having just played a member of the police force in the truly excellent End of Watch, Gyllenhaal invites comparison between the roles but thankfully, there is little commonality to be found between the two. This is a wholly new character and yet another fine performance.

As audience members, our loyalties are split between these two men. As a psychological treatise, we naturally tend to align ourselves with the character we spend the most time with. In spending equal amounts of time with both men, our fealty is in our own hands. Without allegiance to one or the other, we’re able to remove any biases that could arise if the film were framed in an alternative perspective. In this more detached regard, we see the strengths and flaws in both characters.

Each have their gaping holes, fueled by their past – alcoholism and reckless youth for Dover and Loki respectively – and see themselves as lone wolves up against the pack. If only they could have recognized their counterpart in the other, they might have been able to work together in pursuing this same endgame. But both are blinded by their own sense of self-efficacy – the idea that they alone are the hero in this twisted tale.

But for how much each character mistakes him or herself as the sole player with agency – the last vestige of hope in a hopeless situation – no decision is made in a vacuum and each character’s choice alters the course of the others. At various intersections, different approaches come to a head and each character firmly stands on their own ground, allied to their principles and personal ideology of necessity.

For Dover, that “at-all-costs” mentality comes to fruition quickly. When police let primary suspect Alex Jones – played by an absolutely spellbinding Paul Dano – free, Dover takes the situation into his own hands by capturing the dullard boy and torturing him to squeeze any information out of him that may have been overlooked by police. At this juncture, we face our first moral quandary.

Simulating many of the same tactics the American government uses on foreign and domestic terrorists, the scenes are torture to watch. Paralleling this hotly contested US policy, those strapped to a wall, beaten senseless, and faced with psychological degradation may be withholding key bits of information that could lead to lives saved but at what cost? Where is the threshold between being a savior and becoming a devil? Villeneuve scores again here in not spoon-feeding an answer to the audience but asking them to make this judgment for themselves.

On the outside of the equation are Franklin and Nancy Birch – played by a trepidatious Terrence Howard and an uneasy Viola Davis – both of whom align themselves with true neutrality. They have also lost a daughter in the same turkey-day event but remain helpless outsiders. They see the solution as out of their reach and believe that only in allowing larger forces to play out, will they get their daughter back. Always on the outskirts of unfolding events, observers of the horror and yet placated enough to avoid either side of the conflict, they are the eyes of the audience.

As Davis’ character says at one point, “We’re not going to help kill ’em, but we won’t stop ’em either.” At many points, this is how we, the audience, feel. Hers is the altruism of a grieving soul, not willing to lambast her own moral fences but equally unwilling to stand in the way of Jackman’s moral slide. Here, questions arise about the proximity of action and inaction. To what degree is standing aside and letting something happen the same as participating? Another line drawn in the sand, another counterpoint to the structure of law, and another measure of threshold. It’s these types of probing questions that elevate the film beyond a mere detective procedural into a clinical study of deeper psychology. Again, Villeneuve asks: at what point do we become corrupted?

Perhaps one of the strangest and affecting aspects of the film is the simulated call-and-response created between the film’s content and the audience’s reaction. In my screening, scenes of brutality were met with laughter, gasps, and cheers – a vast spectrum of human response that helps to gauge the complexity of issues such as these. To feel outrage not only towards the film but your fellow moviegoers signals something viscerally and sub-textually rich that is rarely found in a movie so potentially wide-reaching.

In chartering such a delicately mapped progression of plot and character beats as well as stimulating such a wide range of reactions, major points should also be delegated to screenwriter Aaron Guzikowski for staying true to the characters and subsequently not allowing them to backpedal out of sticky situations. Guzikowski does not inorganically alter their courses once they’ve begun the dreary descent down their respective rabbit holes and it makes the end result seem that much more well-earned and poignant.

At the center of Guzikowski’s maze of lies is true chaotic evil, and figuring out who is pulling the strings is half the fun. Unlike other detective stories, the puzzle-like aspects of the film aren’t its only strong suits making it more than a one-and-done experience. It’s capped off by a stirring grim narrative about waging war on God that is haunting in its calculated cruelty. We haven’t seen dialogue this unrelentingly dark since Stellan Skarsgård‘s diatribe in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

While often uncompromisingly bleak, Prisoners ends up as more of a pulpy, often riveting, character study than what we may originally have suspected. The film is just caked in grit, a feel that the rain-soaked atmosphere helps to amplify, and yet gives equal attention to that within the performances and narrative. Even though it is in many ways reminiscent of a David Fincher film in both tone and feel, it’s hardly imitation. Instead, Villeneuve crafts his own signature touch rich in moody artistic, using the idea of deadlocked forces to tell a story about the blinding solitude inherent in the human condition As each character on the screen is captive to their own physical or psychological prison, we are captive to the deep digging questions steaming out of the gutters of the film. Questions that we can only answer for ourselves in the vastness of solitude.