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| Hugh Jackman on the set of Prisoners |
Plot Summary (spoilers)
Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) is a struggling carpenter and married father of two living in Brockton, MA, a mid-sized down 25 miles south of Boston. He's also a survivalist who takes his teenage son Ralph (Dylan Minnette) deer hunting and listens to biblical passages on cassette tape. During the holidays, their neighbors Franklin and Nancy Birch (Terrence Howard, Viola Davis), a veterinarian, have them over for dinner, along with Keller's wife Grace (Mario Bello) and their young daughter Anna (Erin Gerasimovich). The Birch children Eliza (Zoe Borde) and Joy (Kyla Drew Simmons) are similar in age to the Dover kids. The two youngest, Anna and Joy, are kidnapped that night while unattended outside by Alex Jones (I'm presuming the role will be played by Paul Dano), who lures them into his RV parked next door, which is a house for sale. Authorities led by Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) hunt him down and arrest him after a chase scene. However, the girls are nowhere to be found and forensics comes up empty-handed from both the RV, as well as the residence of his "Aunt" Holly (presumably played by Melissa Leo). They have no choice but to release him, despite the pleas of Keller, who gets into trouble for threatening Jones. Despite large search parties, the kids don't turn up dead or alive. Loki checks out the alibis of local registered sex offenders with the rectory of the disheveled and passed out Father Dunn (Len Cariou) being the last on his list. While rummaging through his basement, he discovers a skeleton fastened to a chair with leather belts. It's draped with a pendant designed to resemble a maze. Dunn claims the man confessed to killing sixteen children and Loki takes him into custody. As time wears on, Grace consoles and self-medicates herself with pills. And the Birches slowly fall apart, jeopardizing their marriage and relationship with their eldest Eliza.
Keller decides to take the law into his own hands and kidnaps Alex, holing him up in a vacant, slummy three-story apartment he used to live in years ago. He enlists the help of Franklin, who is reluctant to be involved. They will subject Alex to interrogations and torture. Dunn doesn't change his story, but the authorities can't get a positive ID on the skeleton. Loki discovers that the house next door to the Dovers, where Alex had parked the RV, used to belong to the Millands. Their child Eddie had been kidnapped in 1982 and the mother ended up gaining weight and going crazy and moving in with her adult children Kim and Scott in Easton.
Loki gets word that Alex is missing. He interviews a department store clerk Jill about a man who buys children's clothes, but she can't tell whether or not it's Alex when Loki shares his picture. Nancy demands Keller show her Alex. While she pleads with him, he almost escapes. Loki and Detective Chemelinski interrogate Dunn, who reveals the man he killed claimed to have a wife and son. Keller constructs and builds an enclosure in an old shower stall that will emit either scalding hot or freezing cold water that will now hold Alex (impressing the idea of Alex being a "prisoner"), who still isn't talking. Nancy and Franklin are coming close to concluding that they've gone too far.
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| David Dastmalchian has already done a creepy-good job of playing insane; I can't imagine the typecasting here doing the film any favors. |
Nancy gives Keller some poison from the clinic to put Alex down. Keller refuses. Instead, he visits Holly, hoping to mine something out of her. Loki FINALLY makes the connection between Bob and the skeleton. Forensics digs up two child mannequins at Bob's residence and realizes that all of the blood was from a pig. They also find a copy of Finding the Invisible Man, a now refuted book put out by an ex-FBI agent, about someone he believed to be responsible for several child abductions in the 80s/90s. The book deals with mazes to some degree. Apparently, Bob, a former abductee, believed his captor was the mythical figure and he playacted with children's clothes, pig's blood, and snakes to deal with the trauma. OK?! An agent draws the conclusion the skeleton was also familiar with the book. When Loki asks him how they explain the positive ID of the clothes, he responds, "That I can't reconcile." Apparently, Loki would later learn that Bob broke into both the homes of the Dovers and Birches to steal the clothes (he was the intruder from earlier). Eliza ends up starving to death Joy's gerbil; Nancy gives her a big old smack across the face and tells her, "I told you to feed it!" (why did I find this the best part of the story?). Keller buys a bunch of snakes at a pet store and starts feeding them through a PVC pipe which opens up to the enclosure holding Alex to get him to talk.
Cut to a drugged up Joy and Anna in captivity being attended by The Keeper, who supplies them an ample amount of laced grape-aid. They fool their captor and manage to flee, but only Joy successfully escapes. Both families gather around Joy at the hospital, who recalls Keller being near where she was imprisoned. Keller returns to Holly's believing her home to be the current location of Anna. Holly pulls a gun on him and forces him to back up a Trans Am (!) parked over a large piece of plywood, which conceals a hole. She reveals Alex's real identity as Eddie Milland, as well as being responsible, along with her husband as cohort (who was probably the man Father Dunn killed), for the abduction of Bob Taylor. "Making children disappear is how we wage war with God. Makes people lose their faith. Breeds demons like you," she says before shooting him in the leg. He falls into the hole containing snakes and children's skeletons.
My favorite development of the plot is when Ralph and Eliza can't find a hotel, they go to the old Dover residence in the slums. When they hear a voice, they call 9-1-1 and start ripping down the enclosure thinking they're going to find Anna (and/or Joy, as Ralph apparently hasn't gotten word that his girlfriend's sister has already been found), only to discover Alex's decaying body. Loki travels to Holly's, but she doesn't answer the door. Keller thinks he escapes, but then realizes it was a hallucination. As Loki drives away, he spots Keller's truck and returns to Holly's. He simply "opens the front door" and recognizes the pendent around the neck of Holly's husband in a picture. Loki approaches Holly as she injects poison into Anna. Before she goes out with a bang, she says, "Make sure they cremate me. I don't want to be buried in some box." She shoots Loki in the eye, as he shoots her dead (imagine Melissa Leo getting shot in the forehead, which, for some reason, makes me start thinking how bat-shit-crazy-great she would be as Alex Forrest). Loki rushes Anna to the hospital, where she begins her recovery. The movie ends with Loki back at Holly's approaching the Trans Am, as he hears Keller blowing the whistle.
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| Jake Gyllenhaal on set for Prisoners |
It was interesting to read Prisoners after Out of the Furnace, because despite how easy it is to compare the two (setting, themes, etc), they vastly differed in quality. While Prisoners had its share of holes and wasn't immune to cliches, it seemed a great deal more time and thought went into the mechanics of the story. And, yet, despite its gimmicks, the kidnapping script appeared to be saying more about the human condition than Furnace. But, I can't decide if it's a reasonably decent mystery, or too predictable.
While doing the writeup, I realized that Detective Loki, for as talented as he is supposed to be, was pretty slow on the trigger when it came to putting together the mazes and pig's blood. The name has Norse mythology origins and is suggestive of mischievousness and god-like powers, most recently reentering popular culture with the advent of Thor and The Avengers. Here, the story's Loki is a single, coffee-bean popping officer of the law waiting to be transferred to Boston's homicide unit. He's career-focused and has a respected track record for locating missing children. However, this particular case tests his abilities and he becomes obsessed with the difficulty he has solving the matter to the point of going mad. It's a character arc, but not necessarily a fresh one. Gyllenhaal appears that he may have fittingly put on a few extra pounds for the role. Or, maybe it's just the angle.
The title is a reference to the thin line between perpetrator and victim and becoming that which we hate in our quest to do what we think is true and right. Keller can't rely on the fallible system designed to help those in need and protect us and becomes imprisoned by delivering his own brand of justice after being personally wronged. This is simply a chaotic world where we can't be too careful. And challenge lies in rising above being consumed by the crosses we must bear. Yet, given the right circumstances, a man is libel to do things he wouldn't under normal conditions. The script has Keller as an alcoholic who depends on reciting Biblical verses to keep him focused, but doesn't judge him as harshly as some might expect out of "liberal Hollywood." He's a God-fearing man who makes questionable choices out of desperation. While what he does is ultimately illegal and "wrong," he's also a grieving, concerned, and defenseless parent who just wants his child back, and can't depend on the proper authorities to make that happen. The political nuances are interesting. The villain in this story is portrayed as having hippie-like tendencies.
It was unprecedented to have her also be female, but I never really "got" the Holly Jones character. She apparently, with the general assistance of her husband, plucked +16 children off the face of the planet over decades without getting caught. However, can we ever make sense out of those who commit evil acts upon children? There's definitely a camp potential with some of the moments, especially if you add scene-chewer Melissa Leo into the mix. I'm curious to see if the original ending will stick, though I found it to be bold and strong, despite the script's thematic grimness. In this world, if you're abducted, even if you find freedom, you're fucked. And, even if you're a good person, you still run a chance of being screwed over.
Taking a strict mathematical approach, if the character of Alex was kidnapped when he was seven in 1982, and he is now supposedly thirty-four, then the story takes place in 2009 (having read a copy from 2011). I'm fascinated with screenwriters' obsessions with archaic technology. Like, with Prisoners and Furnace, we have two films set within the last three to five years, yet, I've seen an 8-track player twice, as well as a cassette tape. Really?! I mean, I'm a Luddite deep down, but this is ridiculous. The factory entertainment systems in the last two new cars I drove came with either a CD-player or radio-only. Columbia House, which much to my surprise is still kicking even with the advent of iTunes, doesn't even offer cassettes or DVDs for that matter! I guess what strikes me most is that they're presented in such a normalized fashion, with not one iota of irony regarding the time capsule aspect of their very existence. But, I guess this is all incidental when there is a significant metaphor to convey. A car stereo eating up a tape when all hope is lost is more visceral than a CD starting to skip. Yes, there are people who still drive around the same vehicle they had twenty years ago, because they simply do not have the money. But you CANNOT make the argument that there are more than a handful of souls on this planet who still have an 8-track player in their vehicle. And how long can drive-ins and old muscle cars last? Shouldn't some romanticized conventions be given a rest?
A nitpicky detail in the screenplay I was struck by was how a particular house of a family wasn't identified by only the last name, but the husband's name. Really? Oh my. What century is this?
As far as Oscar predictions go, at this point, I wouldn't bet on anything besides maybe one acting nod, if any. Viola Davis comes to mind out of a cast full of previous nominees/winners. But, the more I think about it, this script was kind of over-the-top, what, with the snakes and all. I'm not so sure this film will even make it into the Oscar conversation. Other talent involved include Coen brothers go-to cinematographer Roger Deakins (nominated ten times, recently for Skyfall), composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, and Production Designer Patrice Vermette. Warner Bros will distribute this Alcon Entertainment production filmed earlier this year in Georgia set for a September 20th release.
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