Prisoners

Warner Brothers Pictures has been on roll lately dropping great summer movies like “We’re the Millers” and “The Conjuring”. Not to mention the highly anticipated film “Gravity,” about Sandra Bullock trapped in outer space, will be released in early October.

Prisoners, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Hugh Jackman, Viola Davis, Maria Bello and Terrence Howard, is no different. It was the best 2 hours and 33 minutes I have spent recently. It were as if I were watching an extended episode of Dick Wolf’s Law and Order: SVU, minus Olivia Benson, of course.

When two young neighbors, Joy (Kyla Drew Simmons) and Anna (Erin Gerasimovich), go missing on Thanksgiving Day, it’s up to their parents to find them and justice. The small Pennsylvania town unites in a high-low search for the girls. Detective Loki (Gyllenhaal), who has solved all of his cases, gets stumped with a few leads as he considers everyone as a suspect. Keller Dover (Jackman) takes on a unique approach in a desperate deployment to recover both girls alive.

Terrence Howard and Viola Davis were traditional middle class parents. Despite the recent portrayal of Howard being an alleged woman beater, his character was very delicate and emotional. Filled with a lot of tears and yearning for their daughters return, they both were phenomenal and made for a beautiful couple.

Viola Davis is slowly creeping on the A-list actress radar. Physically, she’s no Halle Berry but she makes up with concrete believability, diversity and a beautiful spirit. I believe it all started with the Help. Since then, Davis has been an unstoppable force and each movie gets better than the one before.

A Strong 4 Stars: You’ll enjoy this movie as you play “Guess Who” trying to figure out who the real bad guy before the plot reveals itself. Prisoners is in theatres Septemebr 20th