Prisoners

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano(Alex Jones),Melissa Leo(Holly Jones),David Dastmalchian(Bob Taylor),Viola Davis(Nancy Birch),Terrence Howard(Franklin Birch),Maria Bello(Grace Dover)

Director: Denis Villeneuve 

Genre: Crime, Thriller

A long boring watch, rips you off your patience only to end in a regular psychopath drama. How predictable!

I could have appreciated the movie if there werent so many flaws in it

Minuses:

• Very disappointed by the script, more than anything else. This is a work of fiction, else could have earned some sympathy at least if it was based on a true story. Very poorly written, the many flaws i could count are as below:

                      (i) None ever suspects sudden disappearance of 'Alex', no one even investigates or worries that includes his aunt 'Holly Jones'

                     (ii) An out of nowhere appearance of 'Bob Taylor' for no reason being in public, just two give the audience a second thought about someone else also being involved in this whole mystery of missing children. He was a pony and absolutely not required for the movie to progress

                    (iii) Very poor on investigations, never complete, always half verified. And with those half done efforts, 'Detective Loki' been driven mad and frustrated! Isnt he just a detective, its his job, how does he loose his cool so often

                     (iv) A big time question, can a father really turn so gruesome on someone who is apparently a 10 year old kid(Alex), when he is himself uncontrollable for a daughter of similar age group. Its insane!

                     (v) An open ending yet again! Question is, given the ability of 'Detective Loki', do you think the left pieces will ever be solved! I dont! Why does no one ever do a proper search in 'Holly's' house at the end, the clue lies right there..beyond my understanding

                     (vi) And sorry but i really didnt get the funda behind the maze thingy! It just made no sense by the end of it

• I am absolutely tired of expecting so much from over rated dumb headed movies, and then ending up writing such a huge drill down on it just to back myself with reasonings enough
• The movie is dead slow, 2 hours and 35 minutes, you may sit through first half, thanks to the performances...but second half will kill you knowing it is actually going no where, after all the wait..all you get to see is a bunch of psychopaths(as if you didnt guess it before). Very very predictable
• For gods sake, slowly built movies are meant to be attented with a lot of care and a look out on all intricacies! Not necessarily all slow movies have to be good, just because they represent some piece of art shit

Pluses:

• The director deserves applause, he does bring about some hard core drama and mental trauma very beautifully. Its only for his direction, that you dont mind sitting through the first half, even when there is hardly any content
• Hugh Jackman, awesome performance as usual! Thankfully, he is not into mere action, but he is capable of doing much more. We have seen his potential in 'Les Miserables'
• Jake Glyenhall, is a very different caricature out here, not really the way we have known him. He very well suits the role and justifies himself, though poorly written script does pull this role down by a bit

Lukewarm:

All the other actors apart from the lead duo, are just about fine, in fact...a little overdone at times




My rating: 2.5/5