Trapped....In More Ways Than One

When you see a movie like "Prisoners," I suppose you could leave the theater with a lot of thoughts.  About the acting.  The plot.  The setting.

Me?  I started to wonder about whether there was just one editing machine in Hollywood that all the major studios had to take turns using it.  How else can you explain the exceedingly long films being unspooled at multiplexes all over America?  It's now officially an epidemic with the release of "Prisoners."  One more movie that chugs along to a more than two-and-a-half-hour length.  

With a tale that could have been easily told in a crisp ninety minutes.   Or one two-part episode of your favorite CSI TV concoction.

Indeed, I was immediately gripped by this story.  Two families in a middle class Pennsylvania get together at one of their homes to celebrate Thanksgiving on a dark and dank day.  From the outside, these are your typical American working class stiffs.  Well, after the pumpkin pie has been eaten, the parents notice that their two youngest daughters are nowhere to be found.  Disappearing without a trace.  The only clue?  A broken-down RV that had been parked down the block but is now mysteriously gone.

Well, these folks don't wait the 24 hours and immediately call in the local coppers, led by Jake Gyllenhaal.  The police go through the standard search-and-find playbook but uncover nothing, much to the disdain of the parents.  One of the dads, played with teeth-gnashing and headache-provoking histrionics by Hugh Jackman, doesn't like the approach and takes matters into his own hands.  Jackman spends most of the movie screaming or pounding his fists onto some desk, as if he was just told that the Tonys have made Neil Patrick Harris their permanent host.  Every scene he plays is utterly exhausting.  For both the actor and the audience.

So, as you would expect, there are lots of scuffles between irate parents and by-the-book police officers.  There are positive leads.  There are dead ends.  There are suspects that remain suspicious.  There are suspects that are complete red herrings.  It is a virtual taffy pull of emotions.  But, at around the ninety minute mark, you start looking at your watch and hoping that they find these two girls sooner than later.  And you stop caring whether they're dead or alive.  

So who really is being held hostage here?  The kids?  Or us?

"Prisoners" features an all-star cast.  Besides Jackman and Gyllenhaal, there's Maria Bello, Viola Davis, Melissa Leo, Paul Dano, and Terrence Howard.  With all that high-priced talent, you know that each of them will have at least one scene where they are so overwrought that the Academy simply can't overlook for a nomination.  And each of them does.  The film is so jammed pack with these emotional renderings that it looks like a sizzle reel for the Actor's Studio.  As a result, the movie drags on longer and longer.  If we're headed down this road, gang, the least the filmmakers could do was give us a chariot race to break up the monotony.

Then suddenly, at the two hour mark, there is a major, major development that really sinks the audience into complete despair.  It happens without explanation or logic.  You never get any background on this thing that just occurred.  And then you realize that this bizarre and inexplicable plot turn has just one purpose.   To stretch another half-hour out of a saga that better filmmakers would have wrapped up by now.

If you see "Prisoners," you will get the look, feel, and grit of "Mystic River."  It is very, very similar.  And, while that movie was over two hours as well, it never felt long.  Perhaps because you were in the competent directorial hands of Clint Eastwood.  "Prisoners" director Denis Villeneuve is no comparison here and, frankly, with a name like that, he's better suited being a goalie for the New York Rangers.

At the end of "Prisoners," you are thoroughly relieved.  Or, at least will be.  As soon as you get to the bathroom and let that large Diet Coke escape your bladder.  Indeed, there is a bit to like in this movie.  And there would have been a lot more if somebody had decided to be innovative and actually edit a movie.

"Prisoners" tells the story of some common folks trapped in a horrific situation.  And shown to people who are suffering the exact same fate.  After playing fifteen bucks to do so.

LEN'S RATING:  Two and a half stars.

Dinner last night:  Beef pot pie.