Prisoners Review - Don't take Wolverines children

                                           

How far would you go to save someone you loved? Prisoners, a movie about two girls who are kidnapped from their home and a father, Hugh Jackman, who will do anything to get them back, asks that very question. Although, for a movie that is two hours long, the writer/director never really explores the question. 

With strong performances all around, Jake Gyllenhaal's character, a police detective trying to solve the case, steals the show in my opinion. He plays a quiet tattooed detective, who is impeded every step of the way by Jackman's character who is driven by vengeance. 

Without spoiling too much, Paul Dano plays a suspect in the film who has the mental capacity of a 10 year old. So, being a suspect, Jackman takes Dano and tortures him trying to learn the location of the girls. Dano gives an interesting performance playing the menatlly challenged suspect who just gets beat up the whole time. 

This movie is purposefully dry and pondering, trying it's hardest to let the emotions from the actors speak for themselves, but when you have two hours of what most cop shows on television do in 42 minutes it is hard to stay entertained. With the main focus being on the emotional consequences of torturing someone, they never fully delve into it, they merely keep torturing the person and asking the audience, "Do you feel anything yet?". 

This seems like a negative review, however I actually enjoyed it as a whole. I think, however it would have been much more enjoyable at an hour and a half and it would have been better to show the emotional stress Jackman's character should have been going through and the effects it had on him.