Movie Review: Prisoners..keeps you in captivity for too long

 
Its rare that I get to say that Hollywood made a movie that could’ve been much shorter and snappier. But this time, I can certainly say it. I missed some 10-15 minutes of the start of the movie and yet I found it too long to endure. Clocking at a rather long 2 hours 33 minutes, Prisoners takes its name a little too seriously and ends up making the audience feel like prisoners as well

This is especially sad since Prisoners is not a bad movie per se. Its got great acting, good direction for the most part and a decent script – but the length of the movie simply deals a deadly blow on all the other stuff. You reach a point wherein you don’t really care whether the movie succeeds in pulling a rabbit out of a hat at the ending, as long as you can exit the hall – the earlier the better. This has such an effect, that even when the film does throw in a dramatic twist that would’ve otherwise captivated you, you’re just too tired and exhausted to take notice

Prisoners does some things really well. It starts off (at least from the point I joined it) tense and excited with an investigation in full swing. Then you meet the two families, defeated and lost and that sets you on the downhill path. The increasing desperation and hopelessness of the situation is well shown till it starts feeling over done. At first one feels that maybe there isn’t much more to the script for them to show but by the end of it all – you are only left wondering why in the world did they delay it so much. In fact, what is most puzzling is that when it all comes to light – there are still plenty of seemingly unanswered questions – you wonder why the movie didn’t spend more time focusing on those

The cast does try its best to lift things up, with Hugh Jackman putting in a particularly strong performance – displaying the raw emotion of the helpless yet desperate father very convincingly. A big change from his Wolverine avatar but he is completely up to the task. Jake Gyllenhaal is also very good as the determined cop.

Watch Prisoners if you have enough time to kill and are willing to show a lot of patience in the hall while the director indulgently takes his time to tell his tale. Then and then alone, would this movie be worth your while and the ransom paid for the ticket money, feel justified