Prisoners 2013

Christy Lemire, ChristyLemire.com: It's got lofty aspirations but it also wants to wallow in the muck - to thrill you and sicken you in equal measure while also being About Something. Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: Prisoners has got more pedigree than a Westminster dog-show winner. It's just not very good. In fact, it's worse than not-very-good; it's could've-been-really-good-and-isn't. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: It absorbs and controls your attention with such assurance that you hold your breath for fear of distracting the people on screen, exhaling in relief or amazement at each new revelation. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Villeneuve is trying like hell to elevate what turns out to be a dumb genre picture...Prisoners is a long sentence. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: A film that seems headed toward one conclusion, then veers toward another over 2/₂ of the fastest-moving hours I've seen in a recent movie. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: Prepare to be electrified! When it comes to thrillers, Prisoners is the must-see sensation of the year. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: In addition to the skin-crawling camera moves and the understated dread that bolsters the surface tensions of "Prisoners" there is a fascinating actor's duel going on. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: "Prisoners" is a dark, deeply serious examination of how loss can unhinge us; it grabs onto you, and you may have trouble shaking it away. Read more

Scott Foundas, Variety: A spellbinding, sensationally effective thriller with a complex moral center that marks a grand-slam English-lingo debut for the gifted Quebecois director Denis Villeneuve. Read more

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, AV Club: While the movie is certainly less than the sum of its referents, it nonetheless works as a formally controlled genre piece. Read more

A.A. Dowd, AV Club: In any case, the crowd I watched it with sat in awed, tense silence throughout-a mighty good sign that a thriller is doing its job. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: "Prisoners" is, above all, an effective thriller, but it wants you to take it more seriously than that. There's no deal-breaking reason not to. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: As gripping as it is grueling, with performances that swing for the fences and a knotty central mystery. Read more

Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader: [An] exquisitely calibrated thriller. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Throughout this beautifully made, slightly specious exercise in Old Testament revenge, the character-study aspects of "Prisoners" coexist intriguingly with the grisly-inhumanity components. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: A film that, for all its pretensions and intermittent power, is essentially high-grade claptrap. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: A gorgeous but manipulative thriller that wants you to ponder Big Questions as it sends a shiver down your spine. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Prisoners is unforgettably relentless in asking moviegoers if Keller has gone too far. And, by extension, asking us how far we would go. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: It never lets up. The cell doors never open. Read more

Cary Darling, Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com: Grim, gray and surprisingly gruesome, Prisoners - the director's first foray into English-language filmmaking - has its flaws, but predictability is not one of them. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: It's rooted in 40 years of Hollywood revenge films, yet it also breaks audacious new ground. Read more

William Goss, Film.com: Denis Villeneuve's film requires and rewards your attention in equal measure. Read more

Wesley Morris, Grantland: Jackman is still in his phase of high-masculine misery... The entire performance is an exclamation point, and he swings it like a baseball bat. Read more

Stephen Farber, Hollywood Reporter: Viewers who see the movie will find it absolutely riveting, and this is a tribute to the filmmaker's skill and to the excellent cast that brings the story to life. Read more

Jocelyn Noveck, Associated Press: In less talented hands, the story could lapse into the maudlin. But Villeneuve, director of the Oscar-nominated Incendies, seems to know just how far to go; only one moment feels less than authentic, but it would be a spoiler to mention it. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: Hugh Jackman gives the performance of his career as a father seeking two kidnapped girls in Denis Villeneuve's taut thriller. Read more

Amy Nicholson, L.A. Weekly: Prisoners is a dog whistle for Academy voters keyed to a pitch that screams, "For the love of God, nominate me for something!" Read more

Charlie McCollum, San Jose Mercury News: This is a powerful, engrossing film that transcends the normal constraints of its genre and is worth your investment of both time and attention. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: After two hours of relentless tension, Prisoners starts revealing its secrets to progressively hokier effect. Read more

David Thomson, The New Republic: Prisoners is weary after ten minutes, and I suppose it has persuaded itself that its length is justified by its solemn gaze into the abyss. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: Though it's nothing you haven't seen before, it's so artfully made and skillfully executed that you won't care a bit. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: A sombrely impressive thriller in the style of Mystic River and Zodiac. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Is it the best Hollywood mystery we've seen in awhile? Oh yes. Is it one any parent would want to see? Only if they don't mind nightmares. Read more

Ian Buckwalter, NPR: A work of impressive craftsmanship that winds up making us think too much about how it was fashioned rather than what it has to say. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: It's easy to make a thriller. It's hard to make one that says something about human nature and then, like the hauntingly compelling "Prisoners," finds something inside the genre that validates tying your nerves up in knots. Read more

Michael Sragow, Orange County Register: Prisoners is an overblown missing-children mystery that wants to comment on the dysfunctional soul of America. Read more

David Hiltbrand, Philadelphia Inquirer: A devastating psychological thriller, Prisoners pulls us deep into our worst fear: the Amber Alert. Then it holds us under. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: The screenplay is smart, the execution is impeccable, and the holes are few and far between. Read more

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times: One of the most intense thrillers in recent years. Best performance of Hugh Jackman's career. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Director Denis Villeneuve's work with the exemplary actors results in a film of startling impact, packed with twists you don't see coming. You can't shake it. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: It's the imitation-David Fincher pretentiousness that gets on my nerves. Read more

Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle: Even when audiences start to question the logical leaps, the performances and visuals remain first-rate. The movie doesn't feel bloated. And the final scenes are anything but a cop-out. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: It's a potboiler premise, but in this uncompromisingly dark telling it veers from the procedural to something deeper and more tragic. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: It's preposterous schlock masquerading as art. Read more

Christopher Orr, The Atlantic: Ethical exploration or exploitation? In the end, I come down reservedly on the former side: the work done here by Jackman, Gyllenhaal, and especially Villeneuve is simply too powerful to ignore. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: The film you begin watching when the lights dim is not the same one you carry home from the theatre. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Prisoners uncoils with a serpent's stealth - and strikes just as suddenly. Read more

Todd Gilchrist, TheWrap: A movie whose execution and performances are admirable, but its eventual concession to monologuing villains and life-or-death standoffs undermines the honest and substantive character work that precedes it. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: You never sense that any of the players is inhabiting a character. Instead they seem to be dispiritedly reading lines off of an internal teleprompter ... Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: The plot raises complicated moral questions about how far an anguished person will go for the love of a child. At the same time, it sets up an intricate, horrifying mystery with breathtaking skill. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: A grade-A genre exercise - but it's a genre predicated on specious reasoning and promiscuous, pseudo-sacrificial suffering. Read more