Prisoners stars Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano, Terrence Howard, Viola Davis and Maria Bello.

After a quiet Thanksgiving, two families are rocked when their young daughters disappear. The only thing out of the ordinary was a white RV. Alex (Paul Dano), the owner of the RV, tries to escape the police, and is ultimately cleared of all charges. With time running out, Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman), takes it upon himself to find out whether or not Alex is guilty, if he has to beat it out of Alex himself.

Overwrought and emotionally manipulative, Prisoners is a good example of great idea, poor execution. Preying on the current fear of kidnapping and pedophilia, it throws too much at the wall to see what sticks. You have a heavy stream of Old Testament religion running through the story, multiple suspects, and a mystery that stretches across decades. But it can’t decide what to focus on. Any one of these would make a great movie, and with a decent script and a good editor, all three could be put together well, but all we get here is a muddled mess.

The players, especially Gyllenhaal, do really well, but they’re given a very poor script by Aaron Guzikowski. One of the suspects is basically a second-rate Batman villain, obsessed with mazes, and it ends with someone condoning the torture and mutilation of an innocent victim. There’s a very negative view of mental conditions all over this movie, and we’re informed that a cursory search turned up several convicted sex offenders in the area. It’s scaremongering. Jackman has very little moral conflict until the end of the movie, and even then it’s very perfunctory. ‘Prisoners’ was disappointing because so much could have been done with the subject matter and such a fabulous cast, and it didn’t accomplish anything. Prisoners opened at TIFF13 in Toronto.

Forgettable.

Donal O’connor