Prisoners

Cast and Crew Members

Cast

Hugh Jackman

Hugh Jackman

Jake Gyllenhaal

Viola Davis

Maria Bello

Terrence Howard

Melissa Leo

Melissa Leo

Paul Dano

Paul Dano

Dylan Minnette

Zoë Soul

Erin Gerasimovich

Crew Members

Denis Villeneuve Director

Denis Villeneuve Director

Aaron Guzikowski Writer

Aaron Guzikowski Writer

Awards and Nominations

Audience Reviews

Read authentic reviews from real viewers about this movie.

• Andres Gomez

  Rating: 8/10

  "Really intense and well done thriller. One of the few in the last years with great performances by Jackman, Gyllenhaal and Dano. It also has some content to chew. I really enjoyed watching it."

• Andres Gomez

  Rating: 8/10

  "Really intense and well done thriller. One of the few in the last years with great performances by Jackman, Gyllenhaal and Dano. It also has some content to chew. I really enjoyed watching it."

• tmdb28039023

  Rating: 6/10

  "Prisoners is a carefully constructed labyrinth, deceptively simple and very clever. The material was nothing new even when the film was released, but director Denis Villeneuve (pre-Dune) and screenwriter Aaron Guzikowski work a few unexpected twists and turns into their maze to keep us on our toes. The key element, however, is Hugh Jackman’s career-best performance as Keller Dover, a father whose patience for police work quickly runs thin when Detective Loki (the always effective Jake Gyllenhaal) fails to find Dover’s kidnapped little daughter. It will surprise no one that Dover decides to take the law into his own hands, recruiting Franklin Birch (Terrence Howard), his best friend whose daughter has also gone missing, to kidnap the only suspect – whom the police has ruled out for the moment –, take him to an abandoned house, and beat a confession out of him. This is par for the course in the movies, but is it realistic? Can a father, however desperate he may be, really go from zero to psycho in no time flat? The film makes this transition 50% more believable by making the character a committed survivalist, meaning that he was halfway there all along. And even if we still found it hard to believe, Jackman would just browbeat us into believing it with a sadistic, ballistic, animalistic skin-shedding, raw nerve-baring performance wherein he doesn't just go berserk; he goes full on Beserker. In some twisted way, all this makes sense; the antagonist or antagonists are just as crazy as Dover, if not more: making children disappear is their way of “making war with God”. With that in mind, who better than a monster to find a monster? Dover may not in fact be too far off either, or is he? In one of those twists I mentioned, the movie toys with the Law of Economy of Characters by casting Paul Dano as the mentally challenged man on whom Dover’s suspicions (and fists, among other objects) fall. Gyllenhaal’s work is as strong Jackman’s, but more subtle and nuanced; he gives his Loki an eye tic which lets us know that, although he has solved all his cases, and belying his usual calm and collected demeanor, he has not gotten to where he is without some traumas of his own."

• tmdb28039023

  Rating: 6/10

  "Prisoners is a carefully constructed labyrinth, deceptively simple and very clever. The material was nothing new even when the film was released, but director Denis Villeneuve (pre-Dune) and screenwriter Aaron Guzikowski work a few unexpected twists and turns into their maze to keep us on our toes. The key element, however, is Hugh Jackman’s career-best performance as Keller Dover, a father whose patience for police work quickly runs thin when Detective Loki (the always effective Jake Gyllenhaal) fails to find Dover’s kidnapped little daughter. It will surprise no one that Dover decides to take the law into his own hands, recruiting Franklin Birch (Terrence Howard), his best friend whose daughter has also gone missing, to kidnap the only suspect – whom the police has ruled out for the moment –, take him to an abandoned house, and beat a confession out of him. This is par for the course in the movies, but is it realistic? Can a father, however desperate he may be, really go from zero to psycho in no time flat? The film makes this transition 50% more believable by making the character a committed survivalist, meaning that he was halfway there all along. And even if we still found it hard to believe, Jackman would just browbeat us into believing it with a sadistic, ballistic, animalistic skin-shedding, raw nerve-baring performance wherein he doesn't just go berserk; he goes full on Beserker. In some twisted way, all this makes sense; the antagonist or antagonists are just as crazy as Dover, if not more: making children disappear is their way of “making war with God”. With that in mind, who better than a monster to find a monster? Dover may not in fact be too far off either, or is he? In one of those twists I mentioned, the movie toys with the Law of Economy of Characters by casting Paul Dano as the mentally challenged man on whom Dover’s suspicions (and fists, among other objects) fall. Gyllenhaal’s work is as strong Jackman’s, but more subtle and nuanced; he gives his Loki an eye tic which lets us know that, although he has solved all his cases, and belying his usual calm and collected demeanor, he has not gotten to where he is without some traumas of his own."

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