Prisoners

First Hit:  Intense, beautifully shot, and engaged acting.

The opening scenes show a darkened winter climate, truck in the driveway, one family walking over to another family’s home for holiday cheer.

The Dover family’s patriarch Keller (Hugh Jackman) is somewhat of a survivalist, intense, appearing to have a quick angry trigger. However it is apparent he loves his family – deeply.

The Birch family’s patriarch Franklin (Terrence Howard) is mellow and somewhat thoughtful. Their wives are different as well. Grace Dover (Maria Bello) seems to be on the edge of falling apart while Nancy Birch (Viola Davis) appears to have more of hardened and strong background. Their daughters all of a sudden go missing.

Police Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) is assigned to the case and he’s got a 100% crime solving record. He is methodical and follows his own path despite questioned interference from his boss Captain O’Mally (Wayne Duvall). The initial suspect Alex Jones (Paul Dano) is a grownup with a 6 year olds understanding of things. Loki doesn’t think Alex knows, or can articulate, enough about the missing girls to be really helpful. Keller thinks differently and imprisons Alex so that he can torture him to give up information about the missing daughters.

This film is hard to watch at times because the torture scenes are graphically displayed. The ending wasn’t suspected, but the pieces do come together and while walking out, I felt I’d been through a wringer.

Jackman was intensely focused and fully engaged his role. Howard was great as a man who was being led to do things he felt wrong. Bello showed a perfect weakness in her character, which isn’t her normal role. Davis was solid and showed a subtle rage against Dano’s character which was perfect. Gyllenhaal was sublime as the intense loner detective who prides himself on getting the answer right. Dano was beyond amazing. He embodied the character all the way and his eyes told the whole story. Melissa Leo was fantastic as Jones’ aunt and matriarch of a sick family life. Aaron Guzikowski wrote a powerful interesting script. Denis Villeneuve did an outstanding job of directing this deep dark script with both light and dark muted scenes.

Overall:  This was a very good and disturbing film.

Contraband

First Hit: Although a bit unrealistic, this was an entertaining film.

Mark Wahlberg and Giovanni Ribisi carry this film as Chris Farraday and Tim Briggs respectively.

They are on the opposite sides of society; Briggs a proud punkish nowhere drug dealer while Farraday has cleaned up his act and has gone straight installing home security systems. Briggs gets Farraday’s brother in-law to become a mule for a drug shipment which he has to dump off the back of a ship as it is entering port.

Now owing a lot of money for the drugs and payment, Farraday, decides to assist his dimwitted brother-in-law’s loss by running a shipment of counterfeit money from Panama. However this plan goes wrong in multiple ways and it is up to Farraday to fix it. The danger of course is that if Farraday doesn’t fix the problem his best friend and former business partner will kill his wife and family.

What you say? Yes, Farraday doesn’t know that his supposed best friend is really heading up the operation that set up his brother-in-law and now he’s getting setup himself. However Farraday is the smartest guy in the film and he figures out a way to it all right for himself and his family.

What makes this film entertaining is the interaction between Farraday and his real friends and his shipmates. He’s an everyman with just enough more smarts than the people around him. And when he says to his wife Kate (played by Kate Beckinsale) “trust me, I’ll take care of this” you know he’ll make it right and he does.

Wahlberg is perfect as the everyday hero and guy doing the right thing. Ribisi is fantastic as the slightly twisted thug who can be as vile as any thug could hope to be. Beckinsale is good as the trusting wife. Ben Foster as Sebastian was very good as Wahlberg’s betraying best friend. Aaron Guzikowski wrote a reasonable script from the Icelandic film Reyljavik-Rotterdam. Baltasar Kormakur directed this action film in a fully unexplainable and entertaining way.

Overall: Not a great film by any stretch of the imagination but it is fun to watch.