Genre: Thriller/Drama
Premise: (from IMDB) When Keller Dover’s daughter and her friend go missing, he takes matters into his own hands as the police pursue multiple leads and the pressure mounts. But just how far will this desperate father go to protect his family?
About: This script sold for roughly a million dollars 4-5 years back. It was one of those dream scenarios as it was the writer’s (Aaron Guzikowski) first sale (a later script of his, Contraband, ended up getting made sooner). Who gets paid a million bucks their first time out?? Not only did he get the big money, but guys like DiCaprio and Bale wanted to star in his movie. Eventually, the musical chairs casting ended up with Hugh Jackman and Jake Gylenhaal in the lead roles. The film finally came out this weekend, finishing number 1 at the box office with 22 million dollars. There are some who say this is the first real Oscar contender to be released. Let’s find out if that’s the case!
Writer: Aaron Guzikowski
Details: 153 minutes!! Yowzers!
Okay, so here’s the deal. Five years ago, everybody was talking about this script. While it didn’t end up number 1 on the Black List or anything, a lot of folks tabbed it as their favorite script of the year. I read it and thought it was good. I even gave it an impressive rating (I was a little less discerning back in those days). What I remember is that the script had a strong sense of tone. It led us to a dark place and we believed in that dark place. That’s not easy to do.
I also remember that the ending completely fell apart and if they were going to make a good movie, they’d need to completely rewrite it. There was a common amateur mistake at play. Guzikowski set up a lot of fun little mysteries, but didn’t pay them off. In fact, the climax felt like a completely different film (the maze stuff came out of nowhere). I was interested to see how they would fix that in the rewrites.
Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) and his family head to Franklin Birch’s house for some Thanksgiving activities. The neighborhood they live in is a nice, respectable middle-class suburb. You’d feel safe raising your kids there which is probably why neither the Dover’s or Birch’s think twice about letting their 10 year-old daughters play outside.
But as the day turns to night, the families notice the girls haven’t returned and begin a frantic search for them. When they realize they’re gone, Keller’s son remembers a strange RV camped out down the block. Lonely Detective Loki, no relation to Thor, is called in to find the van. When he does he’s shocked to learn it was being driven by Alex Jones, a local man with the IQ of a third grader. Jones doesn’t seem to know anything about the girls so they let him go.
This infuriates Keller, who’s convinced that Alex is their guy. So he takes matters into his own hands and kidnaps Alex, locking him up in an abandoned apartment building he owns. With the reluctant help of Franklin, the two begin to torture him in hopes of learning where their daughters are. The question is, does Alex really know? Is he their guy? Or does Keller want him to be the guy so badly that he’s unable to see the truth?
In the meantime, Detective Loki suspects that some other weirdo is the kidnapper and eventually finds out where he lives. When he gets there, the walls are covered with mazes. Coupled with the man’s propensity for buying children’s clothes despite not having kids, Loki’s pretty sure he’s got the guy. When Keller hears this, he freaks out. Is he torturing the right man? Before anyone can get a definitive answer though, Second Suspect OFFS himself! This leaves everyone rolling in a heap of hearsay. It isn’t clear who’s telling the truth, who’s lying, and who has the girls. But they’re going to have to find out soon, because the clock is ticking, and without someone to provide food or water, the girls don’t have long.
Here’s what I liked about Prisoners. The setup was unique. And because the setup was unique it allowed for a lot of unique situations that we don’t usually see in these kinds of movies. A straightforward kidnapping story goes like this: A girl gets taken, they search for her, there are twists and turns and false leads along the way until they finally save her. This is the boring traditional blueprint for this kind of film.
But Prisoners institutes what I call the “Silence of the Lambs” approach. It adds a secondary element that throws all your expectations for the genre off. In Lambs, obviously it was Hannibal. Here, it’s Keller’s imprisonment of Alex. This isn’t something we typically see, so it confuses us, intrigues us, unsettles us. It’s not just about finding this girl. It’s about “IS KELLER TORTURING THE RIGHT GUY??” Is what he’s doing “right”? Is Keller going to kill the wrong guy? Is Keller going to get caught? What happens if he does get caught? These are all questions we don’t typically deal with when we’re watching a mystery procedural.
I think that and the dogged determination of both Keller and Detective Loki to do their respective jobs is what made this film so watchable. I always tell you guys – the more determined your characters are to achieve their goal, the more we’re going to care. I mean Keller is ready to move mountains to find this girl. And Loki is going to stay up all night 7 nights a week until he’s got his man.
Which leads me to another thing Prisoners did well. It explored that gray interaction between the detective and the victim’s family we don’t typically get to see. Many times the victim’s parents are so mad, so angry, that they endanger the investigation, themselves, even innocent people. They believe vigilante investigation and justice is the only way to go. And since they place emotions before logic, they’re often wrong. This leaves the detective in a position of not only trying to find the victim, but trying to keep the family from hurting themselves. Prisoners did a really good job looking at that.
Here’s my big problem with Prisoners though. They never figured out the ending. It’s better than it was. But there are too many unanswered questions after the movie’s over (spoilers follow). Okay, so this Second Suspect had the girls’ clothes. How? As far as I could tell, he wasn’t affiliated with the real killer so why in the world would he have the girls’ clothes? And how did one of the girls escape? That was NEVER explained. And why wasn’t she able to tell them who she ran away from? Oh, and who was this mystery child killer the priest murdered? Or did he even murder him? That was never stated. Was he Alex’s mother’s ex-husband? If so, why wasn’t this clearly explained?
Sadly, the reason the first ¾ of this movie worked so well (its zig-zaggy plot) was because they never had to make the dots connect. Of course it’s a great twist when Second Suspect has the girls’ clothes if you NEVER HAVE TO EXPLAIN HOW HE GOT THEM. Certain choices seemed to confirm the director’s lack of confidence in the script. As we got closer to the end, we’d get more and more “artful” fades to black. These seemed to be used to cover up or divert our attention away from these emerging plot holes.
I’m not going to lie, there were things in that third act that upset me. But for the majority of its running time, Prisoners kept me on the edge of my seat. I think it wants you to believe it’s bigger and more complicated than it is, which is where the frustration sets in (because you want it to be big!) but the reality is that it’s a solid non-traditional thriller and that’s it. But hey, I’ll still take that over Transformers 8 any day!
[ ] what the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the price of admission
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Breaking the fifth wall! Oh yeah, you guys have heard of breaking the fourth wall. That’s when one of the characters talks directly to the audience. But do you know what the fifth wall is? It hit me while watching Prisoners. At a certain point, I began to wonder what I would do if I were in a Keller’s position. My daughter is kidnapped. I think, but am not 100% certain, I have the guy who did it. Would I go to the same extreme Keller does? See, the fifth wall is the wall that invites the audience TO PARTICIPATE in the story. When they start asking, “Hmm, what would I do if I were in this situation?” you’ve officially sucked them in. This isn’t for every screenplay. But it’s a very powerful tool in the right script.
