Prisoners questions what a person will do to reclaim someone that they love. In the first fifteen minutes, the young daughters of two Pennsylvanian families disappear. The prime suspect is the mentally-disabled, RV-driving Alex (Paul Dano), but Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) is unable to compound any evidence on him and is forced to let him go, at the behest of Keller (Hugh Jackman), the father of one of the girls, who begs him to keep Alex in lock-up for one more day. When the judicial system fails him, and with his statistical knowledge of mortality rates when it comes to child abductions, he takes the law into his own hands by kidnapping and torturing Alex for the location of his daughter. As the days creep on, neither Keller nor Loki get any closer to the girls, and we the audience watch a small, rural American neighbourhood eat itself alive in defeated grief. Feel-good romp of the summer, folks!
God's pretty important to everyone in Prisoners. When there's a cross hanging from almost every rear view mirror, with Loki going so far as to have one tattooed into his hand, you know you're dealing with a town that's pretty good at keeping the faith. You'd think then that these would be some pretty decent, good-hearted people that believe in universal love and forgiveness, right? Well, it seems almost everyone in this town is just using God as a way of shirking responsibility. The film opens with Keller reciting the Our Father before teaching his son how to shoot game. Fair enough, he's apologising for the death he is about to cause but acknowledges its necessity so his family may eat. But later in the film, he has Alex boxed up in a shower. He's rigged the hot water system so there's only two temperatures: freezing and scalding. He drops to his knees and starts reciting the Our Father again, but stops when he has to forgive those trespassing against him. His blind belief aside, he doesn't actually know whether Alex abducted the girls, or whether he even knows where they are. The responsibility for Alex's well-being lies upon his head at this moment, but that's too heavy a burden for Keller. So he quickly scores some absolution so he doesn't have to feel bad about it. Later in the film, when the serial abductor is finally revealed, she claims her multiple crimes to be a Holy War against God for allowing her son to die of cancer. In making children disappear, she forces parents to become faithless to get back at the deity that took her child from her because grieving was too difficult. No-one in this town is willing to accept responsibility for anything, and for most of them it's because there's a book that tells them they don't have to.
As well as religion and responsibility, Prisoners deals with a third theme: futility. As soon as it began, I felt trapped. I felt claustrophobic and helpless, like a rat stuck in a maze constructed without an exit. How appropriate then that the serial abductor's MO is placing children into a pit with a book of mazes, allowing them to leave once they've completed all of them - an achievable feat if it weren't for the last one being unsolvable. Huge praise to cinematographer Roger Deakins for creating a visual feast that made me feel utterly devoid of hope. Claustrophobia exudes from every frame: it was filmed in an aspect ratio lower than most films today, the Pennsylvania location is a bunch of close-together, similar-looking houses surrounded by dense forest and many camera angles consist of either extreme close-ups, shots angled upwards from a hole or external shots of people in boxes, be they offices, bedrooms or basements. It works thematically, too. Revisiting the opening scene, as soon as it begins you know that the deer is dead. You're just left waiting for the deer to be aware of it. That bleeds into the rest of the film. You know, without a doubt, this cannot end well for anyone. Keller may get his daughter back, but he's going to have to answer to his own abduction of Alex. The girls may be found, but there will be long-lasting psychological impacts to the horrors they were subjected to. Keller sums it up best when he says, "Pray for the best. Prepare for the worst." You spend the film holding onto hope that there's a happy ending on the horizon, but deep down you know that's just a childish belief and you've already reserved yourself into defeat.
Ultimately though, Prisoners jumps so erratically between these different ideas that I was left wondering what the point of it all was. Is America's reliance on God ultimately a crutch? Are we doomed to self-destruction until we can stand up and accept responsibility for our own actions? Is the downfall of society a township's widespread misinterpretation of the "How To Not Be A Cunt" handbook? The answer's probably all three, but its frustrating for a film so strung up on criminilasing irresponsible people to cower in the corner when questioned and say, "Not my problem." You can tell this screenplay desperately wants to be told it's clever, and it is, but it hasn't yet graduated from the school of crime show writing, and it's here that my problem with crime shows becomes apparent. When you're only given 40 minutes to hop into the mind of a criminal, you don't have time to do any more than scratch the psychological surface before it's time to make way for next week's serial masturbator. Prisoners has 150 minutes, and it still doesn't get there. When you give serious thought to the criminal and their motive, it makes the film seem kind of...goofy, not to mention some of the gargantuan plot holes. But at the end of the day, we come back to my opening paragraph. A film's worth is measured on its ability to make you feel something. Prisoners succeeds in that, with all of its flaws. It can go home, head held high, knowing that Criminal Minds only wishes it was this good.
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