Butler's Cinema Scene

“PRISONERS” My rating: B- (Opening wide on Sept. 20)

153 minutes | MPAA rating: R

“Prisoners” is a grim, joyless thriller that briefly toys with being something more before thinking the better of it and settling down to being just a grim, joyless thriller.

It was made by Denis Villeneuve, a French filmmaker whose “Incendies” – a multigenerational story set in the violence-plagued Middle East  — won my vote for the best release of 2010.  That film flowed effortlessly forward and backward in time to tell an epic story of revenge and forgiveness, and compared to it “Prisoners” should have been pretty easy going.

But there’s something at war in the heart of this film, a struggle between the conventions of noir, flat-out melodrama and higher aspirations. This time Villeneuve struggles to keep all his balls in the air.

The film starts out strong with a two-family Thanksgiving dinner in a wooded working-class Pennsylvania suburb. The Dover family – Keller (Hugh Jackman), Grace (Maria Bello), teenage son Ralph (Dylan Minnette) and little daughter Anna (Erin Gerasimovich) – are chowing down with their best friends. The hosting Birch clan consists of Franklin (Terrence Howard), Nancy (Viola Davis), teen daughter Eliza (Zoe Borde) and little daughter Joy (Kyla Drew Simmons).

The two wee girls go out to play and vanish. The parents go from mild irrirtation to concern to panic. Soon the cops are on the scene in the person of Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal), a socially-challenged loner whom we meet celebrating Thanksgiving  alone at a Chinese diner. He does have this going for him: Loki has never failed to solve a case.

Question is, can he solve this one in time to save the little girls?

Paul Dano, Jake Gyllenhaal

The most obvious suspect is creepy young Alex Jones (Paul Dano), who possesses the IQ of a 10-year-old and whose ratty white RV was cruising the neighborhood when the girls disappeared. He tries to flee the police and is arrested, but the questioning goes nowhere—he’s more trapped animal than human being.

After 48 hours without the cops uncovering any substantial evidence, Alex is released into the custody of his aunt (Melissa Leo).

With hope fading the volcanic Keller – a carpenter with survivalist proclivities (he’s got a cellar filled with supplies, guns, and gas masks) – takes matters into his own hands. He snatches the hapless Alex, imprisons him in an abandoned building and proceeds to torture the monosyllabic young man until he gets answers.

He even brings in Franklin, an educator who is at first appalled at these horrors and then acquiescent as he realizes this brutality may be their only chance at finding their daughters.

At this point the screenplay by Aaron Guzikowski, whose last effort was the mediocre Mark Wahlberg vehicle “Contraband,” seems poised to explore some deeply disturbing issues of vigilantism, a stumbling legal system, and personal responsibility. But “Prisoners” lacks the will to go deep. Having set up a profound moral dilemma, it fritters away the potential in return for standard-issue movie thriller conventions.

Loki’s investigation, meanwhile turns to a bizarre young man (David Dastmalchian) who buys little girls’ clothes at thrift shops and seems to have a  link to the kidnappings.  Oh, and then there’s the boozy priest (Len Cariou) who keeps in his basement the mummified corpse of a penitent who, he claims, confessed to murdering countless children.

Viola Davis, Terrence Howard

In the end, all these loose threads come together, though not in an entirely convincing manner.

Villeneuve and his cinematographer, the great Roger Deakins (“The Shawshank Redemption,” “Skyfall” and most of the recent Coen Brothers’ movies), give “Prisoners” an unrelentingly frigid, dark feel. This is a world without sunshine, where if it’s not spitting frigid rain it’s blowing snowflakes. It’s like an entire world lit only by blue-ish fluorescent bulbs.

The performances are thoroughly competant, yet they never really transcend the screenplay’s limitations – these aren’t so much real people as convenient characters, stitched together to meet the needs of the narrative. (You could say that about many movies, but here the seams are just too obvious.)

And it’s hard to know whom to root for here. Jackman is borderline villainous as the desperate and vengeful Keller. Howard, Davis and Bello are seriously underutilized.

And Gyllenhaal’s detective is capable of rage but not of warmth – he’s borderline austistic.

“Prisoners” is a long movie – 2 ½ hours – but moves fairly quickly. Those looking for suspense will find it as the yarn twists and turns to its conclusion.

Yet I can’t shake the sensation that the movie isn’t really playing fair with us.

| Robert W. Butler