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Kevin Michael Vance
Writer - Portland, Oregon
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Title: PRISONERS
Director: Denis Vileneuve
Year: 2013
Reviewed: March 25, 2014
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Rice Cake-Lowest Rating |
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I found"Prisoners" to be somewhat of a convoluted mess, packed chock full of characters we know in the most rudimentary of manners. This is a movie that attempts to be deep and profound, but only barely scratches the surface of what could have been a taut, violent, and poignant thriller. Case in point Hugh Jackman's character is a "doomsday prepper". Great. Fine. But that's it. That's all we know. We don't know why he's like this. He just is. This could be an impetus for at least one, if not all of his motivations, but it's simply window dressing; an attempt at depth of character where there is none. Same thing with Jake Gyllenhaal's character. Detective Loki is not only the oddest named character they could have come up with, but he doesn't look like any cop I have ever seen in my life. First off, no one ever addresses the strange fact that some parents named their child after a Norse god, not to mention that Loki is the trickster, the god of mischief. Secondly, the character has a bunch of strange tattoos on his fingers and neck, a hipster haircut straight out of Portland's Modern Man, and a tick; his eyes twitch. All of these are attributes that define character, but without any background or even vague definition they come off as, again, window dressing... superfluous. And then there's the killers; a married couple that has been abducting and murdering children for years. And their reason? Something to do with God hating children... or some such nonsense. But again, none of this has any meaning or weight, it is simply another vague reason for what essentially turns out to be a vague and nonsensical film. Finally there's the run time, at two and a half hours this movie is a slog. Any attempt at brevity would have been welcomed, but with so much run time and so little character development this truly felt like torture-porn.
For all those reasons above, not to mention Hugh Jackman screaming in most, if not all, his scenes the movie "Prisoners" gets my lowest review: RICE CAKE review.
p.s. avoid this film, instead, watch "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance". My favorite in the trilogy.
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