Prisoners

Denis Villeneuve's thriller Prisoners begs the question, "What would you do if your child was taken from you?" Hugh Jackman's Keller Dover answers the question quite vividly over the course of two-and-a-half hours.


The film wastes no time getting into the search for Keller's daughter and her friend, daughter of Terrence Howard's Franklin. Very quickly does Keller go from a well-meaning family man to a ruthless and vengeful man, showing no hesitation in pulverizing his suspect. The rest of the film, however, takes it's time to build the suspense and create an unsettling atmosphere. For instance, the scene in which Jake Gyllenhaal's Detective Loki (and no, there is no allusion or parallel made to the Norse god of mischief) inspects the home of a suspect and comes across a few disturbing discoveries is enough to make one squirm, considering how far he's gotten by that point, and it opens up a sense of failure and hopelessness. Of course, this is one of the film's many twists and turns that must be seen.

Jackman is spot-on in capturing the fear, dread, and anguish of this man who will stop at nothing to get his little girl back. He carries the film from beginning to end and never shows signs of slowing down. The other actors, such as Maria Bello as Keller's grieving wife and Howard as his reluctant but contemplative friend, also do fine jobs in their performances, but the standouts must be Gyllenhaal, who for the past decade or so has played a handful of dull and disengaging characters, yet manages to keep up with the intensity of Loki's drive to solving the case, as well as Paul Dano in the role of the quiet and creepy suspect Alex Jones. He says very little, yet he gives one reason to sympathize with Keller in his suspicion to his knowledge of the girls' disappearance.

What the film leaves you with, other than the aforementioned question, is the sense that in any moment, everything you love can be taken from you in the blink of an eye, and you may be helpless in preventing that. It's a dreadful notion, yet the fact that it lingers is a testament to the film's power. Additionally, as one character states, crimes like the kidnapping of a child can turn one into a monster, as is the case with Keller, but it's a matter of how far this person is pushed and what this person is capable of. Some may not be brave or bold enough to go as far as Keller does, but he had quickly become hellbent on ending this nightmare that he created a new one for himself.

The Family

Director Luc Besson is known for having a particular style when it comes to his films, though none of that seems present here in The Family. Instead, it feels like some dime-a-dozen action film (with a shortage of action) that randomly throws in Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer and Tommy Lee Jones and squanders their talents with a sloppy and unimaginative script.

The film shows how a family of four who come from the Brooklyn mafia world are adjusting to life in Normandy after De Niro's Giovanni gets them put in witness protection. So naturally, they all handle their business the way any badass mafioso would - i.e., beating the tar out of a boy with sleazy intentions, starting an organized crime circle among fellow classmates, and blowing up a supermarket out of spite. Amusing, yes, but somewhat derivative.

In some ways, if more effort was put into this, it could have been an interesting piece on developing a new life outside a life of crime, but then the movie seems to forget that it's meant to be an action-comedy, so it pulls in some hitmen in the last half hour to save face for a lack of action that doesn't involve Giovanni fantasizing about assaulting anybody who pisses him off. And therein lies the film's biggest problem: it doesn't know where it wants to go with it's characters and development. It doesn't even really take much time to establish the conflict between Giovanni and the hitmen that want his head. Most of the family's issues just happen to be resolved when the band of hitmen arrive, and it leaves it at that. Additionally, it isn't even very funny. The humor comes from the aforementioned dirty deeds that the family commits, as well as a subtle-as-a-firecracker nod to De Niro and executive producer Martin Scorsese by having Giovanni watch Goodfellas at a debate.

The Family isn't necessarily a terrible film, but it isn't one that is even really worth the price of a matinee ticket. It plods along unevenly and lacks in both action and comedy, as well as any sort of substance.