Prisoners

First of all, I must introduce a: 

********* SPOILER ALERT **********

If you have not yet seen the movie, leave this post and go see it, then come back and discuss with me your opinions. Otherwise, your viewing experience of the film will be quite unappealing if you read on. So, your choice. Impatience can ruin experience. Just keep that in mind.

The movie itself, after two viewings, was astounding and still very exciting and unpredictable, while filled with themes and symbolism, which is what I seek in thrilling movies. Movies which have a rare amount of plot twists are not at all thrilling, yet surprisingly there are many movies, deemed thrillers, with this problem, which leaves viewers feeling quite critical, in negative aspects. Prisoners, though, begs to differ. Containing many themes, Prisoners takes the viewer along with the characters on a crazed rollercoaster ride of emotions through the physical, mental, law and non-law abiding processes to do with kidnappings and potential suspects.

Parenthood, masculinity and survival are three major themes in this film, intertwined into the main character, Keller Dover. His need to abide by the social rules of parenthood in that one must take care of their child, becomes seemingly difficult when his daughter and the daughter of his family friends go missing. This is emphasised after the middle of the film, when Dover catches Loki stalking him, he enters Loki's car and says, "every day, she's wondering why I'm not there to f**king rescue her! Do you understand that? Me, not you! Not you, but me!" His masculinity is questioned by his wife, in that his role of a father and a protective individual cannot be fulfilled unless he finds his daughter, and these two themes clash with the main theme at the beginning of the film: Dover being a survivalist. He has thoroughly prepared himself and his son for the worst, "pray for the best, but prepare for the worst," yet nothing can prepare him in locating the whereabouts of his daughter. 

Another common theme was stereotyping - stereotypically, the priest at the beginning of the film is a pedophile. How common it is to mistake any priest for a child molester because of their reputation in the news nowadays. This misleads the viewer into thinking that the priest is at fault with the law, when in actuality the priest has killed off Holly Jones' husband because of his ill confession to the priest five years ago - how is it though, that the priest feels ill about the confession that Mr Jones has killed sixteen children and will continue, when the priest himself is a registered sex offender? Couldn't the priest have reported the man to the police, thus aiding them in unravelling the big case before Anna and Joy were kidnapped, let alone any other children? Not abiding the stereotype, though, is that the priest would break one of the ten commandments and allowed a man to die right underneath him - literally, which brings me to the next main theme in the film: religion.

At the beginning of the film, Keller is seen hunting a deer with his son, and chants the entirety of the 'Our Father' prayer before shooting it - but when punishing Alex by scalding him with hot water, he says the 'Our Father' and does not continue when the prayer says "forgive those who trespass against us" - the symbolism in this becomes interesting when it ties in with the meaning of the spirit totem of a deer, which could be part of the character of Keller. The spirit totem of the deer is associated with gentleness, the ability to move through life and its obstacles with grace, innocence and being in touch with their inner child, and sensitivity. The killing of the deer at the beginning by Keller's son could symbolize him letting go of these qualities, and leading his son on the same path. This could explain why he does not finish the 'Our Father' when punishing Alex, as well as not being able to forgive him, assuming of course that he is the kidnapper of his daughter. Tied in with the theme, Keller is shown letting go of his religious routes and morals in order to bring Alex to justice. 

Apart from themes, I found some slight faults in the storyline: firstly, after Alex is caught at the beginning and had his RV searched, Loki claims that they have found no evidence in the RV or on his aunt's property - had they undergone a thorough search, they would have easily found the gaping hole underneath a simple board of wood beneath an out-of-place Trans Am in her yard - why, too, did they not seize the Trans Am from the Jones' yard after both Joy and Anna were found and Alex returned to his original family? It is slack to begin excavating the yard when there is a muscle car still standing in their way. And where did Keller's car go after Holly Jones drove it off when he came to find Anna towards the end of the movie? Surely she would not have driven it off too far away because she had to have driven it a walking distance back to her house so that she could place Keller in the 'maze' before the liquid substance that he drank would have begun to wear off. Why didn't Keller call Loki on his way to the Jones' house to show him his sense of direction towards his innocence and Holly's guilt? Or why didn't Loki follow him in a car chase that would result in the finding of Anna and the safety of Keller? And finally, when Loki arrives at Holly's house to notify her that they have found Alex, he calls out quite loudly, "Mrs Jones, Mrs Jones?" How could she not have heard him, especially during the chaos that is having Anna out of the maze and attempting to drug her?

Apart from those faults, I found the movie quit exhilarating, in that it literally had kept me at the edge of my seat. It is sad that there are so many missing children cases in the real world - if only we had Detective Loki to assist us.