Prisoners
Theatrical release poster
Directed byDenis Villeneuve
Written byAaron Guzikowski
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyRoger A. Deakins
Edited by
Music byJóhann Jóhannsson
Production
companies
Distributed byWarner Bros. Pictures
(North America, Australia, Italy and Spain)
Summit Entertainment
(International)
Release dates
  • August 30, 2013 (2013-08-30) (Telluride)
  • September 20, 2013 (2013-09-20) (United States)
Running time
153 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$46 million[2]
Box office$122.1 million[2]

Prisoners is a 2013 American thriller film directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Aaron Guzikowski. The film has an ensemble cast including Jake Gyllenhaal, Hugh Jackman, Viola Davis, Paul Dano, Terrence Howard, Melissa Leo, and Maria Bello.[3]

The film follows the abduction of two young girls in Pennsylvania and the subsequent search for the perpetrator by the police. After police arrest a young suspect and release him, the father of one of the daughters takes matters into his own hands.

Prisoners premiered at the Telluride Film Festival on August 30, 2013, and was released to theaters on September 20, 2013. The film was a financial and critical success, grossing $122 million worldwide against a production budget of $46 million, and receiving generally positive reviews from critics. It was chosen by the National Board of Review as one of the top ten films of 2013, and at the 86th Academy Awards, Roger Deakins was nominated for Best Cinematography.

Plot

In Conyers, Pennsylvania, the Dover and Birch families celebrate Thanksgiving. After dinner, girls Anna Dover and Joy Birch go missing after playing on a parked RV. Detective Loki responds to a police call about an RV matching the description and arrests the man inside, Alex Jones. During interrogation, Loki realizes Alex's diminished IQ prevents him from planning a kidnapping and learns that his RV contains no forensic evidence of the missing girls. Loki runs down leads on local pedophiles and finds a corpse in the house of Priest Patrick Dunn. Dunn admits to killing him after the man confessed to murdering sixteen children for his "war on God".

The police captain releases Alex to his aunt, Holly. Convinced of Alex's guilt, Keller Dover, the father of one of the missing girls, assaults him outside the police station, where Alex whispers to him, "They didn't cry 'til I left them." After Loki finds no proof of this, Keller kidnaps Alex, and begins to torture Alex for information about his daughter, in an empty building Keller owns.

At a vigil for the girls, Loki approaches a suspicious man who flees. Loki releases a sketch of him to the community. The suspect sneaks into the Birch and Dover houses. Grace, Keller's wife, hears him and calls Loki, who learns while responding that Keller spends his nights away from home. He tails Keller to the empty building, where Keller claims he goes to drink, but Loki doesn't find Alex. Loki tracks down the suspect, Bob Taylor, at his house. The walls are covered in maze drawings and Loki opens crates filled with snakes and bloody children's clothes. Loki shows Keller and the Birch parents photos of the bloody clothes, and they identify several as Joy's and Anna's. As Taylor draws detailed mazes, Loki assaults him and demands the location of the girls. Taylor grabs an officer's gun and kills himself.

Keller continues torturing Alex for the location of the girls, and Alex cryptically talks about escaping from a maze. Keller visits Holly, learning that Alex's stuttering comes from a childhood accident involving snakes her husband kept. Holly and her husband lost their faith after their son died of cancer, and they adopted Alex as a way to cope. Loki matches the maze pattern in Taylor's drawings to a necklace depicting a maze worn by the corpse in Dunn's house. At Taylor's house, Loki is informed that most of the bloody clothes are store-bought and soaked with pig blood. Below a window outside the Dover house, Loki finds Taylor's footprints and a sock matching Anna's, which Keller had earlier identified.

The drugged Anna and Joy attempt to escape, but only Joy gets away and is found and hospitalized. When Keller questions a woozy Joy, she remembers little, but tells him, "You were there." He immediately rushes out. Loki gives chase and arrives at Keller's building expecting to find him, but instead finds Alex. Keller goes to Holly's to find Anna. They talk for a while and then Holly pulls a gun. She explains that before her husband disappeared, they abducted children as part of their war on God to avenge their son's death, and to create demons out of the traumatized parents. Alex was their first abduction, Taylor was their second. Holly imprisons Keller in a hidden pit in her yard, where he finds his daughter's whistle.

Loki enters Holly's house to inform her that Alex has been found, but instead finds a photo of her late husband wearing the maze necklace. Realizing that Holly is the kidnapper, he searches and finds her giving Anna an injection. In a shootout, Loki kills Holly but is grazed in the head. He rushes Anna to the hospital while fighting unconsciousness.

A recuperating Anna and Joy visit a bandaged Loki in his hospital room to thank him. Later, Loki wanders the crime scene at Holly's house, when he faintly hears a whistle blowing.

Cast

Production

Aaron Guzikowski wrote the script for the 2009 Annual Black List, and based on a short story he wrote, involving "a father whose kid was struck by a hit-and-run driver and then puts this guy in a well in his backyard". That short story was partially inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart".[4]

After he wrote the spec, many actors and directors entered and exited the project, including actors Christian Bale and Leonardo DiCaprio and directors Antoine Fuqua and Bryan Singer.[4]

Ultimately Guzikowski would credit producer Mark Wahlberg for getting the project on its feet, stating, "He was totally pivotal in getting the film made. That endorsement helped it get around."[4] Principal photography began in Georgia in February 2013.[5]

Release

MPAA rating

Prisoners premiered at the 2013 Telluride Film Festival and was released theatrically in Canada and the United States on September 20, 2013. It was originally rated NC-17 by the MPAA "for substantial disturbing violent content and explicit images"; after being edited, it was re-rated R "for disturbing violent content including torture, and language throughout".[6]

Box office

Prisoners opened in North America on September 20, 2013, in 3,260 theaters and grossed $20,817,053 in its opening weekend, averaging $6,386 per theater and ranking #1 at the box office. After 77 days in theaters, the film ended up earning $61,002,302 domestically and $61,124,385 internationally, earning a worldwide gross of $122,126,687, above its production budget of $46 million.[2]

Reception

Critical response

On review aggregator web site Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 81% based on 253 reviews, with a rating average of 7.30/10. The website's critical consensus states: "Prisoners has an emotional complexity and a sense of dread that makes for absorbing (and disturbing) viewing."[7] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 53 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[8]

Christopher Orr of The Atlantic wrote: "Ethical exploration or exploitation? In the end, I come down reservedly on the former side: the work done here by Jackman, Gyllenhaal, and especially Villeneuve is simply too powerful to ignore."[9] Ed Gibbs of The Sun Herald wrote: "Not since Erskineville Kings, in 1999, has Hugh Jackman appeared so emotionally exposed on screen. It is an exceptional, Oscar-worthy performance."[10] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote that Gyllenhaal was "exceptional" and that "Villeneuve takes his unflashy time building character and revealing troubled psyches in the most unlikely of places."[11]

The film was a second runner-up for the BlackBerry People's Choice Award at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, behind Philomena and 12 Years a Slave. Gyllenhaal received the Best Supporting Actor of the Year Award at the 2013 Hollywood Film Festival for his "truly compelling, subtly layered" performance as Detective Loki.[12]

Not all reviews were positive, however. Writing in The New Republic, David Thomson declared that the film was "weary after ten minutes" and furthermore "hideous, cruel, degrading, depressing, relentless, prolonged, humorless, claustrophobic, and a mockery of any surviving tradition in which films are entertaining".[13] A mixed review came from Sheila O'Malley of RogerEbert.com, who gave the film 2.5 stars out of a possible 4. She wrote that Jackman's performance grew "monotonous" and that the film sometimes verged on pretentiousness, but was redeemed by a few excellent suspense sequences and Gyllenhaal's performance, whose "subtlety is welcome considering all the teeth gnashing going on in other performances".[14]

Audiences

Audiences polled by CinemaScore initially gave the film a grade "B+" on an A+ to F scale, but Warner Bros asked for a recount by the service and later said the film received a grade "A−".[15][16]

Top ten lists

Prisoners was listed on various critics' top ten lists.[17]

Accolades

Award Date of ceremony Category Recipient(s) Result
Academy Awards March 2, 2014 Best Cinematography Roger Deakins Nominated
American Society of Cinematographers February 1, 2014 Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Theatrical Releases Nominated
Chicago Film Critics Association December 16, 2013 Best Cinematography Nominated
Critics' Choice Movie Awards January 16, 2014 Best Cinematography Nominated
Empire Awards March 30, 2014 Best Thriller Nominated
Hollywood Film Festival[12] October 21, 2013 Best Supporting Actor Jake Gyllenhaal Won
Key Art Awards[19] October 24, 2013 Best Teaser – Audio/Visual "Ticking" Bronze
Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild Awards[20] February 15, 2014 Best Contemporary Make-Up Donald Mowat and Pamela Westmore Won
National Board of Review December 4, 2013 Best Cast Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Melissa Leo, Paul Dano and Dylan Minnette Won
Top Ten Films Won
People's Choice Awards January 8, 2014 Favorite Dramatic Movie Nominated
San Diego Film Critics Society December 11, 2013 Best Cinematography Roger Deakins Nominated
Best Performance by an Ensemble Nominated
Best Original Screenplay Aaron Guzikowski Nominated
Satellite Awards February 23, 2014 Best Cinematography Roger Deakins Nominated
Best Editing Gary D. Roach and Joel Cox Nominated
Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture Jake Gyllenhaal Nominated
Saturn Awards June 26, 2014 Best Make-up Donald Mowat Won
Best Supporting Actress Melissa Leo Nominated
Best Thriller Film Nominated
Toronto International Film Festival September 15, 2013 People's Choice Award Denis Villeneuve 3rd Place
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association December 9, 2013 Best Ensemble Nominated

Soundtrack

The Prisoners soundtrack, composed by Jóhann Jóhannsson, was released on September 20, 2013.[21]

No.TitleArtistLength
1."The Lord's Prayer"Jóhann Jóhannsson2:31
2."I Can't Find Them"Jóhann Jóhannsson4:09
3."The Search Party"Jóhann Jóhannsson2:54
4."Surveillance Video"Jóhann Jóhannsson3:34
5."The Candlelight Vigil"Jóhann Jóhannsson5:10
6."Escape"Jóhann Jóhannsson5:44
7."The Tall Man"Jóhann Jóhannsson2:47
8."The Everyday Bible"Jóhann Jóhannsson2:23
9."Following Keller"Jóhann Jóhannsson2:11
10."Through Falling Snow"Jóhann Jóhannsson2:44
11."The Keeper"Jóhann Jóhannsson2:49
12."The Intruder"Jóhann Jóhannsson3:11
13."The Priest's Basement"Jóhann Jóhannsson2:48
14."The Snakes"Jóhann Jóhannsson2:51
15."The Trans Am"Jóhann Jóhannsson2:37
16."Prisoners"Jóhann Jóhannsson6:59
Total length:55:00[22]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "PRISONERS (15)". E1 Films. British Board of Film Classification. September 13, 2013. Archived from the original on September 26, 2013. Retrieved September 13, 2013.
  2. 1 2 3 "Prisoners (2013)". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Archived from the original on June 6, 2016. Retrieved January 10, 2014.
  3. ↑ "Hugh Jackman to Star in Vigilante Thriller PRISONERS for November 2013 Release". Collider.com. Archived from the original on September 21, 2013. Retrieved March 4, 2013.
  4. 1 2 3 Giroux, Jack (September 20, 2013). "Interview: The Back-to-Basics Brutality of 'Prisoners'". Archived from the original on July 28, 2017. Retrieved July 28, 2017.
  5. ↑ "Production Begins on Denis Villeneuve's PRISONERS, Starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal". Collider. February 20, 2013.
  6. ↑ Keogh, Joey (November 18, 2015). "Not Quite Horror: Prisoners (2013)". Wicker Horror. Archived from the original on July 13, 2020. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
  7. ↑ "Prisoners (2013)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango. Archived from the original on May 11, 2021. Retrieved June 22, 2021.
  8. ↑ "Prisoners (2013)". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on July 2, 2017. Retrieved May 6, 2020.
  9. ↑ Orr, Christopher (September 20, 2013). "Prisoners: Moral Exploration or Exploitation?". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on February 18, 2022. Retrieved April 30, 2020.
  10. ↑ Gibbs, Ed (October 12, 2013). "Prisoners review: Dream performances enliven every parent's worst nightmare". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on March 3, 2021. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
  11. ↑ Travers, Peter (September 19, 2013). "Prisoners".
  12. 1 2 Feinberg, Scott (September 23, 2013). "Jake Gyllenhaal to Receive Acting Honor at Hollywood Film Awards (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on November 3, 2013. Retrieved April 4, 2014.
  13. ↑ Thomson, David (September 23, 2013). "'Prisoners' and the Rotten State of Hollywood" – via The New Republic.
  14. ↑ O'Malley, Sheila. "Prisoners movie review & film summary (2013) | Roger Ebert". rogerebert.com/.
  15. ↑ McClintock, Pamela (October 18, 2013). "CinemaScore in Retreat as Studios Turn to PostTrak". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on April 1, 2019. Retrieved January 28, 2019.
  16. ↑ "Cinemascore :: Movie Title Search". Archived from the original on December 20, 2018. Retrieved January 28, 2019.
  17. ↑ "2013 Film Critic Top Ten Lists". Metacritic. Archived from the original on January 2, 2014. Retrieved May 6, 2020.
  18. ↑ IndieWire Staff (December 25, 2013). "Indiewire's Editors and Bloggers Pick Their Top 10 Films (and In Some Cases TV Shows) of 2013". Archived from the original on September 15, 2020. Retrieved May 6, 2020.
  19. ↑ "Catalog: Audio/Visual – Winners". Key Art Awards. Archived from the original on December 13, 2013. Retrieved April 4, 2014.
  20. ↑ Giardina, Carolyn (February 15, 2014). "Dallas Buyers Club, Bad Grandpa Win at Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Awards". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on March 6, 2014. Retrieved April 4, 2014.
  21. ↑ "Prisoners Soundtrack". SoundtrackMania.com. Archived from the original on August 8, 2014. Retrieved August 1, 2014.
  22. ↑ "Prisoners Soundtrack". Soundtrack.Net. Archived from the original on September 6, 2013. Retrieved August 1, 2014.
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