Reel Asian 2013 Film Review - Bombay Talkies

Commissioned to celebrate 100 years of Indian Cinema Bombay Talkies is divided into four short films by a roster of India's leading directors Karan Johar, Zoya Akhtar, Dibakar Banerjee and Anurag Kasyap.

The Johar offering begins with a bang. A young gay man storms into his parents house looking for his father pulling him out of is bed and throwing him against a wall screaming that he is a homosexual and not a eunuch. The young man Avinash (Saqib Saleem) goes to intern at gossip magazine working closely with the editor Gayatri played by Bollywood superstar (Rani Mukerji). Gayatri spends her days emerged in salacious details of celebrities lives but has none of that at home in stuck in a sterile marriage to her television presenter Husband Dev (Randeep Hooda). Avinash comes to dinner at their home on his birthday night turning their uneventful home life on its side. A highlight is the angelic singing of old Hindi songs by a young beggar girl (Alisha Shaikh) perched on a bridge situated over a set of train tracks.

The best of the four shorts is the Dibakar piece that features Nawazuddin Siddiqui who was a standout in The Lunchbox that played at this years Toronto International Film Festival.  Siddiqui plays Purandar who is jobless, sleeps on the balcony of his small home and has a bedridden daughter. He goes out to find work but arrives late at the location to discover that the posting is already filled. On the way home he is drafted into a film as a featured extra, gains some wisdom and a one on one encounter with an action star. Purandar now new material to tell is daughter in and engrossing pantomime breaking the repetitiveness of the usual bedtime story routine.

The other two shorts are uneven and uneventful, the Akhtar one by the only female director in the group focuses on gender issues. A father (Ranvir Shorey) will not fund his daughter Kavya (Khushi Dubey) school history trip. Instead he pays for soccer training for his disinterested slight son Vijay (Naman Jain) who is obsessed with Katrina Kaif and would rather dance than play sports. The two siblings work together to ensure that each gets what they really want.

The Kasyap entry focuses on the cult of celebrity. Vijay (Vineet Kumar Singh) is sent from his small town of Allahabad to Mumbai by his father to ask legendary actor Amitabh Bachchan to take a bite of Vijay's mothers Murabba (preserved fruit) believing his illness will be cured if he takes the next bite. Vijay's father had done the same venturing to the City to have superstar actor Dilip Kumar lick from a jar of honey on his father's behalf. Vijay ends up begging for entry over a series of days at the gate of Bachchan home ending up having to improvise as his father did a generation before.

The big dance number at the end features a slew of Bollywood legends singing the theme song of the film amongst clips from Bollywood films over the last 10 decades. The theme of the project is the effect that cinema has had over the years on the common man.  In the end the offering is mixed and not a film that I can recommend in it's entirety.

**1/2 out of 4.

Bombay Talkies | Karan Johar, Dibakar Banerjee, Zoya Akhtar  Anurag Kashyap India | 2013| 128 Minutes.

100 years of Indian Cinema, Bollywood, Legendary Actors, Homophobia, Quest, Celebrity Worship. Sexism.

Reel Asian 2013 Film Review - The Great Passage

Mitsuya Majime (Ryuhei Matsuda) is a shy and awkward employee at a publishing house. He has lived at a rooming house for nearly 10 years with his only source of conversation being Take (Misako Watanabe) the elderly woman who runs the home. He works in the sales department for Genbu Publishing but is unable to speak to anyone therefore he never makes a sale. He eats lunch alone with a book perched in one had as he eats with the other. Books surround the small desk at his living quarters. His only other interaction is with a cat Tora-san that scratches the shutters to come into his quarters each night. Faithful employee and editor Kouhei Araki (Kaoru Kobayashi) has announced his plan to retire.  He would like to spend more time with his ill wife. The timing is bad for the head of the Dictionary Editorial Department Professor Matsumoto (Shingo Tsurumi) as he has planned to compile a modern living dictionary in a project called The Great Passage. Professor Matsumoto envisions the reference tool as a boat for passage across the sea of words. A dictionary so people can cross the vast sea and connect. The book will contain all of the main words currently in use plus a good portion of secondary words but the key will be the inclusion of slang terms with the proper definitions and a note on how the word is misused.

Director Yuya Ishii tackles a potentially mundane subject in an appealing fashion. At the beginning of the project the year is 1995 and the team discusses the amount of years that it took to complete some popular dictionaries ending the discussion with one that took 28 yeas to complete. The group concluded that they would be happy if they finished The Great Passage in 10 years.  The opening portion of the film is shot mainly in the dark and shadows. Looking at the Dictionary department it's amazing to see how far technology has come in under twenty years. The words are compiled on index cards and kept in a card catalogue. Most of the work is by hand although the department does have a computer that is used sparingly paper, books, spreadsheets and folders are piled in towers leading up to the ceiling. Each team member is surrounded or more accurately buried and barely visible to other colleagues. It's into this dreary settling that Majime arrives passing his first test to provide a definition for the word Right that has stumped the group especially his co worker Mr. Nishioka (Joe Odagiri) who is Majime's complete foil and brought fear to the Professor when he was contemplated as Araki's replacement.

Majime's world is tilted when he meets Take's his granddaughter Kaguya (Aoi Miyazaki) a budding Sushi chef whose fascination with Japanese knifes is on par with Majime's for words and books. The two strike up a friendship that grows and once they decide to follow the same path the narrative jumps ahead 12 years to 2007.

The film is based on a Shiwon Miru novel adapted for the screen by Kensaku Watanabe. The narrative is presented in a slow meticulous manner which is to be expected for a project that is focused on compiling a 240,000 word modern living dictionary. The action picks up when Majime first meets Kaguya and literally falls for her in their first encounter followed by his awkward attempts to show his feelings for her. Mr. Nishioka is the main source of comic relief full of funny remarks to keep the group going starting with his declaration after only the first few words are recorded of how long will this take. A memorable part of the story is the three words that are defined by prominent characters in the film. The afore mentioned Right plus, Love and Uncool.

The main set for the film is the Editorial Department office. It is small full and incredibly cramped. An interesting set piece at the outset is the computer circa 1995 and the manual reference library type filing system used as the words are compiled.  The transformation of the set is notable when the timeline jumps ahead to 2007.  The first change is the familiar audible click of a mouse as information is now compiled on a laptop computer.  The piles are lower and more light now comes into the room with to signify the arrival of the 21st century.

Ryuhei Matsuda is terrific as Majime the central figure in the film. In the course of his first rate performance he rises from an introverted bookworm paralyzed in public to the confidant Director of the Dictionary Editorial Department and leader of the decade plus project to complete the dictionary. Joe Odagiri shines as his laid back colleague Mr. Nishoka who springs into action when the project is threatened showing his sales skills to obtain outside backing. Take (Misako Watanabe) provides sage advice and a quick wit as his landlady. Her contribution to the film is especially important in the early stages when due to the dry subject matter the piece could easily have stalled. Aoi Miyazaki is very good in the role of the quiet stoic sushi chef and knife aficionado Kaguya.

The Great Passage is an engrossing study of a skill and subject that is probably lost to the new technological edge. After all who owns a Dictionary nowadays and if the answer were yes would the owner know where it is? Handled in a charming manner and featuring several noteworthy performances the Great Passage is a film that I can recommend.

The Great Passage | Yuya Ishii |  Japan | 2013 | 133 Minutes.

*** out of 4.

Tags:

Bibliophile, research project, publishing, the 90's,books, Dictionary, Meticulous, Obsolete, Life's work, Sushi, Japanese knives.

Reel Asian 2013 Film Review - The Kirishima Thing

Set in a Japanese Highschool in an unnamed town The Kirishima Thing follows a group of Students over a 5-day period leading up to an important parents night. The film focuses on several groups of students dividing them up into those that participate in after class events and those that do not.  The film is based on a novel by Ryo Asai for which he receives a writing credit while Kohei Kiysu and  Daichai Yoshida take screenplay credits.

The school's star pupil Kirishima is absent from class. He is the star of the volleyball team, dates Risa ( Mizuki Yamamoto) who is in the leading female clique in school and is best friends with Hiroki ( Masahiro Higashide) the next best athlete in school who is sought after by all of the school teams. Kirishima is not returning calls or texts but is expected to turn up at class at least by parent's night.

The film hits all of the hierarchical high school roles. The top female group that includes the above mentioned Risa, along with Sana (Mayu Matsuoka) who is dating Hiroki, Kasumi (Ai Hashimoto) and Mika (Kurumi Shimizu). Risa and Sana are above after class events but do stick around after school to wait for their boyfriends. Kasumi and Mika claim that they are not important but both play on the badminton team.  Next you have the Athletes lead by the Volleyball and baseball teams followed by the band and at the bottom the nerds in the Film club.

Where the film has its strongest moments is in its portrayal of Japanese ordered society. The students are uniformed spending long days at school from early morning pre sunrise arrivals to departures in the dark of night. The sporting teams practice and play on both Saturday and Sunday determined to earn honour and recognition for the school. There is great respect for one elders. The students bow to the their teachers when greeting and departing. If given a direction for a project by a teacher they do not go against the teacher's will.

The feature is very well written. The opening sequence titled Friday is shot from four different points of view. In each of the four presentation of the day scenes are repeated from two three and even four different perspectives. The anchor of the sequence occurs when the main characters are all in the same class and the teacher hands out a questionnaire that is to be filled out and returned before the parents meeting the following Wednesday. The multiple angle devise is used again on the following Tuesday which is presented from two different points of view.

As is usually the case in this type of piece the two most interesting characters are outside of the popular groups. The Captain of the band saxophone player Aya Sawashima (Suzuka Ohgo) likes Hiroki and takes to practicing in unusual areas after class where she knows that he will be in plain view. Film club leader Maeda (Ryunosuke Kamiki) defies his teacher by writing and shooting a film about Zombies in and around the school that leads to a climatic confrontation on the roof when the film club, volleyball team and popular kids all end up in the same spot.

Director Daihachi Yoshida uses several different shooting techniques for the film. Many of the arrival shots at the school are shot from above to give the crammed effect of a school full of students arriving for first class. The majority of the scenes use a fixed camera that the action moves toward then away. Yoshida departs from this style in the multiple repeated scenes where he uses different camera angles, framing and even alters the content to emphasis the current perspective of the scene. Another constant feature is characters running throughout the school.  They are running into class to after school practice, to meet up with each other or to where they think one of their friends may be or on several occasions into other students.

Masahiro Higashide stands out as Hiroki, one of the leading athletes at the school but reluctant to continue on the baseball team. He is the title character's best friend but able to share real moments with other students who are struggling to get by.  The above mentioned Ohgo and Kamiki have the most complex roles therefore lots of material to work with and both perform well. Ai Hashimoto and Kurumi Shimizu are both surprising as Kasumi and Mika. Both members of the popular girl clique but each are willing to branch out to interact and support perceived lesser lights even challenging Risa and Sana if they are out of line.

The Kirishima Thing is a superior presentation of high school life that takes a different path. The characters move in and out of expected roles providing an enjoyable viewing experience. Intelligently acted by a pleasing ensemble cast; Yoshida captures the structure of Japanese school life in a piece centered by a robust script. The Kirishmia Thing is a film that I can definitely recommend.

*** 1/2 Out of 4.

The Kirishima Thing | Daihachi Yoshida | 2012 | Japan | 103 Minutes.

High School Sports, Extracurricular Activities, Formal Uniforms, Cliques,  School Honour, Teenagers, Non Linear Narrative, Film Club, George Romero, Peer Pressure.

Reel Asian 2013 Film Review - How to Use Guys With Secret Tips

Bona (Si-Young Lee) is an unnoticed second assistant director for a television commercial production company. She is a glorified production assistant that works long days for little pay or recognition. While on a commercial shoot she is reintroduced to Lee Seung Jae (Jung-se Oh) a major commercial and soap opera star who just 5 years ago was trying to impress Bona to secure an acting job. Seeing him again reminds Bona of how much of her rut her career is in thanks to the men in her life.  After falling asleep at a beachside shooting location far away from Seoul Bona encounters a mysterious salesman with a camper full of self help videos.  She chooses the package on controlling men plus a bonus Where's Waldo book. Following  a night of viewing Bona is armed with new tools that work on the first field test eventually helping to move out of the shadows and into prominence as a director.

Director Wonsuk Lee has crafted a farcical tale that includes most of major elements of a romantic comedy. Bo Na is the overworked under appreciated introverted female that gets the male star to notice her and even create a rivalry with his arch nemesis for her attention. The twist to the piece is the Secret Tips tape series presented by Dr. Swalski who appears throughout the film blending into scenes to take Bona through the steps accompanied by his western male and female actors. In one memorable sequence he imparts a piece of knowledge to Bona in a fast food restaurant dressed as a server from behind the counter ending with him yelling at the customers in the long line that they should make their food themselves and that he does not work here.

Wonsuk Lee co wrote the script with Hye-yeong No and Ha Soon-jin. The opening sections of the screenplay work well. The film moves quickly to the tips that are presented in the first two acts of the piece. The material contains several subtle comedic moments that the viewer could easily miss if not paying close attention. The pages are full of several antidotes of how men and women view the same situation from different angles. The Emotion Change Graph complete with a male and female prop is a key element in Dr. Swarlski presentation.

The wardrobe department played a major part in the film. Bona starts out as pullover clad mess with tuffs of hair sticking out to represent the fact that she is working long days and does not get the opportunity to expand her wardrobe. As she moves through the tapes her confidence grows leading her to dress in blouses and skirts. Soon she moves on to more elegant clothing as her fame as a director grows. Lee Seung Jae also has multiple wardrobe outfits as the leading celebrity icon and self proclaimed fashionista behind his ever present oversized dark glasses. Bona is also often dressed in yellow, which is used as an important plot device in two instances in the film. Self help Guru Swarlski dons many costumes as well. From a fast food order taker as mentioned above to assorted bright shirts and jackets normally featuring a bow tie with the flare of Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka.

Cinematographer Sun Ryung Kim shoots many scenes with a dark blue hue that gives the film a certain character. The look of the piece is often very bright including the night scene that are often back lit, sharp and crisp. The main recurring set is Bo Na's home featuring the sloped stairs and gate leading up to her front door. The front section of the location is used for several scenes including a critical one between Bo Na and Lee Seung Jae.

Si Young Lee shows her range as an actor in the lead role. She is very believable as the quiet biddable second AD in the opening section of the film. She also portrays each stage of her characters growth creditably. The audience is on board with Bo Na equally as a scattered marginalized obedient gopher at the outset of the production as they are when she transforms into a relaxed decisive acclaimed director. Park Young Gyu is particularly strong as How To Guru Dr. Swarlski especially when he leaps from the T.V screen to show up in scenes to present his tips in real time.

Wonsuk Lee has taken a difference look at the romantic comedy in How to use Guys with Secret Tips.   Lee takes some risks with the piece and the result borders on a screwball comedy. The film has some good elements but the 113 minute run time is just too long for the subject matter and some viewers will loose in the last half hour. The film goes in a new direction that is just not needed. It's a good effort, the tips and instructions on the videos are a delight and presented well but without a serious edit it is not a film that I can recommend.

** 1/2 Out of 4.

How to Use Guys with Secret Tips | Wonksuk Lee | South Korea | 2013| 113 Minutes.

How to tapes, Self Help Guru, Game Show,  Sexism, Soap Opera, Television Commercial Director, Glass Ceiling, Award Show.

ImagineNATIVE Festival Film Review - Soli

Directed by Adrienne Marcus Raja's Soli follows a mythical figure representing the Sun and choice. Sole (Chris Riley) interacts with various individuals as they are faced with critical choices. Among them a card reader, a writer with a severe case of writers block, a composer and a woman who is contemplating suicide by jumping into a lake. The short is rich with colour with yellow naturally being the main one featured throughout the piece. Sole is dressed in yellow and the production features many shots of a calm lake full of yellow boats that begin to be joined by black ones as the frustration of the characters grow.

As he visits the players in the short Sole does not offer any influence either to do good or bad but remains neutral and with a flip of his ever present coin inspired by Sol Invictus and reminiscent of Two Face from Batman fame lets the characters choose their fate. Shot in vibrant 16 millimetre in and around the Greater Toronto Area Director Raja creates a magical world full of bright colours but with an undercurrent of darkness signally frustration and the possibility of negative choices. The film featuring eight different set locations and several distinct characters that could easily be lengthened from its 10 minute run time for a more in depth exploration. Soli is first-rate effort from emerging film maker Raja an artist to track for future projects.

 Soli | Adrienne Marcus Raja | Canada | 2013|


Interview with Soli Director Adrienne Marcus Raja


Flick Hunter Question:  What is the origin/idea for the short and explain the significance of Sol Invictus.

Adrienne Marcus Raja Answer:  The Roman Coin's solider has a helmet and Spear. The lead character in Soli has a Top Hat and Cane.

Yellow played a big part in the Malaysian elections, yellow meant fair/ neural no favour to either side. Burish 3.0 rallies featured yellow tee-shirts, government forces cracked down arresting people for wearing them and even having them in their luggage.

FH Q Speak to to significance of Light vs Darkness and loneliness vs being alone in the short.

AMR A.  Light/yellow represents good positive thoughts and ideas while darkness/black signifies frustrations and bad thoughts to the negative side of neutral.

FHQ  Discuss your choice to cast Chris Riley as your lead actor Soli.

AMR A I did not know Chris he was a friend of a friend that I found on Facebook.   My thoughts on the Character Soli originated with the Old Georgie character in Cloud Atlas.  I thought Chris could play the part so I messaged him on Facebook He did not have a beard as he does in the film. He is a musician by trade a bassist in the Heavy metal band AXXION.  The rest of the actors in the film are from my circle of friends.

FH Q Can you talk a bit about your involvement in different production areas?

AMR A I was involved in all aspects of the production. I did all of the costumes and even played my own prop department as I personally crumpled all of the black paper that you see on screen to represent the frustrations of both the writer and the composer.

FH Q The film has multiple locations which is unusual for this length of short can you talk about the set choices.

AMR The film has 8 sets. We shot at Toronto City hall but had an 11AM deadline to complete as we had to be out before the start of the TD Toronto Jazz Festival that day.  The set for the calm lake with Yellow and black boats was at Stoney Lake near Peterborough Ontario. We had planned to film at Kew Beach for the potential suicide scene but our permit was not approved. My Producer Chantal Whitter made a quick call to Mississauga and we rushed out to find a reasonable replacement location obtaining a permit to shoot there in 24 hours.

FH Q  There are so many characters and settings here  it appears to be enough of a foundation  here to lengthen the production.

AMR A I'm working on the script to increase the story there are a lot of areas that can be expanded to create a longer film.

FH Q What is your next project? Are you working on  an ideas?

AMR A I have an idea to do a short film in Malaysia on the traditional hats called Peta's that are passed down from generation to generation. As they are passed along the recipient alters or adds to the beaded hat considering that peoples heads come in all different shapes and sizes.

FH: Thank you Adrienne for taking the time to talk to us.

AMR:  Thank you for coming to see and talking to me about my film.

TIFF 2013 Film Review - Rush

Race car drivers come mainly from two schools. The first stream that the public and team owners love want to go fast whatever the risk, are willing to stick the nose of their vehicle into any opening gladly embracing the reality that when the flag drops to start a race there is a real possibility that they may not make it to the finish line. The other set are more technical aware of every engineering aspect of their vehicle. They were willing to push themselves and their vehicles but will not take on any undue or unnecessary risk.  They tend not to be liked and a thorn in the sides of team owners, fellow driver's and the governors of the sport.  The main characters in Ron Howard's Rush James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and  Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl) are the leaders of each school at the highest level of racing in the mid-70's.

The film focuses on the battle for the World Championship in the 1976 Formula 1 season. Lauda and Hunt have a rivalry that dates back to the lower levels of the sport. They are the classic foils; Lauda the precision technical student of vehicles vs. Hunt's show up late, jump in the car and push your right foot to the floor approach. Howard captures the essence of a by gone era where a single guy with money could buy his way into a team or a group of friends backed by a fading noble title could piece together a car in the lower levels to eventually take their shot at Formula 1.  Howard picked a story from the golden era of the sport featuring the massive cars with their V12 engines that were essentially time bombs on wheels at the peak of their power, speed and unpredictability.

Howard's realistic portrayal of the driving scenes gives the project an authentic look. The racing scenes convey the feel in the cockpit down to the vibrations that driver feels as they are behind the wheel. Howard displays on screen the sheer speed as the cars leave the pavement, draft and hurdle inches apart around the circuit. The other notable aspect of the film is the sound. The massive sound department created a film that roars. Revving engines, shifting gears, squealing tires, and breathtaking sequences of driver's loosing control and on occasion spinning into barriers.

The set decorators, art department special effect and visual effects team do a remarkable job of recreating the Circuits of the 1976 F1 season. Every details is identical from the helmets to look of the tracks to the sponsors signage around each circuit and stickers on the cars themselves. Two sets stand out above the others the designs for the Canadian and German Grand Prix.

Julian Day costume design team nails the racing suits and pit crew attire of the era. The stitching, sponsor logos and style of the fire suits match those of the actual drivers. The casual wardrobe of Hunt and his entourage are true to the time period. The wardrobe of Hunt's wife supermodel Suzy Miller (Olivia Wilde) is particularly identifiable of the time.

Anthony Dod Mantles Cinematography is a vital element of the piece. To make a successful racing movie the audience have to feel as if they sharing the driver's experience. Dod Mantle mounted small cameras on bumpers, engine blocks and helmets of the cars and actors to bring the viewer right into the actions. The look and feel of the blue rainy treacherous fateful day of the German Grand Prix is crafted through Don Mantle's lens.

Peter Morgan continues his current run of top level scripts on stories based on real people. In recent years his work has included screenplays for Frost/ Nixon, Last King of Scotland and The Queen. In his writing for Rush he presents the lifestyle of the racecar driver and has at his disposal James Hunt perhaps the driver that embraced the lifestyle to the fullest. A real life friend of Niki Lauda, Morgan presents the Austrian driver as a formable and determined man. He is not flashy but still willing to push himself sometimes beyond normal human limits to achieve his goals.

Rush is an hour and a half thrill ride that brings the viewer directly into the world of formula 1 racing. Even if you're not a Formula 1, racing or even a fan of sport the story of the rivalry between these two drivers, the adversity that they face and the steps that they take to overcome them is a compelling story. It's a film that I can highly recommend.

*** 1/2 Out of 4.

Rush | Ron Howard | U.S.A. / Germany/U.K. |123 Minutes.


Tags: Formula 1, World Championship, James Hunt, Niki Lauda, McLaren, Ferrari, Great Britain, Austria, 1976 German Grand Prix, Car Crash, Rehabilitation.




 

TIFF 2013 Film Review - Prisoners

What would you do if your child was abducted and every bone in your body knew that they were alive and waiting for you to do something to help them? Would you follow the rules, wait for the police to do their job, respect due process?  These are the questions at the heart of Denis Villeneuve's new film Prisoners.

It's Thanksgiving Day perhaps the most popular holiday in America. The holiday is not religious one therefore all of the citizens participate fully. The Dover's are headed over the block to the Birch's for Thanksgiving day football and food. The families are a good match.  The Dover's teenage son Ralph  is about the same age as Eliza Birch while The families two young daughters Holly and Joy are inseparable friends. The four go out for a walk before dinner whereby they encounter a mysterious RV. Later that afternoon the two young daughters go out to the Dover house without their older siblings and do not return.

Villeneuve is at the peak of his craft with his work on this film. The introductory shots of Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) seen from the back in a sparse diner on Thanksgiving day set up his character as a lonely soul possessing the single-mindedness succeed with detective work. Another fantastic scene at a wooded area when the police first catch up with the subject R.V. captures the tension as the rain falls as the officers approach the vehicle trying to determine if the girls are inside.

Relative newcomer Aaron Guzikowski's script gives several characters the room to grow throughout the piece. Keller Dover ( Hugh Jackman) a tradesman and hunter who prides himself on being prepared for any event locks into a path from the moment his daughter Anna is abducted which picks up speed and altitude as the narrative progresses. Nancy Birch (Viola Davis) a mother and host of the Dinner shows her strength as she learns and reacts to some morally questionable activities. Her husband Franklin (Terrence Howard) an even keeled teacher takes the level headed approach as events unfold.

Veteran Cinematographer Roger Deakins who's recent credits include Skyfall and True Grit choices of lighting and colours serve the film well. The complete lack of light in the afore mentioned encounter with the R.V. bordered by the pitch dark forest raises the suspense level to a high level early on in the film.  His work along with Art director Paul Kelly and Set Decorator Frank Galline on the run down apartment complex that is a key location in the piece complement each other well to build the isolation and hopelessness of a place where once at no one will know where you are.

A key element in building suspense in any drama is the musical score. Johann Johannsson low eerie tones mixed with full symphonic pieces support the sequence of events and build anxiety equally in day  and night time scenes which is a rare feat.

The film is full of strong performances. Hugh Jackman is superb as the Keller Patriarch as is Terrance Howard in a very contrasting role as Franklin Birch. Violet Davis is exquisite as Nancy Birch as she  provides the main female perspective of the morally questionable actions.  Jake Gyllenhaal is effective as the local cop on the case moving steadily towards cracking the case collecting and following the evidence. Melissa Leo and Paul Dano also put in strong performances in supporting roles.

Prisoners is an excellent story that asks the individuals watching several important moral and ethical questions.  It is a well written, acted, directed and shot production that I can highly recommend.

*** 1/2 out of 4.

Prisoners | Denis Villeneuve | 2013 | U.S.A. | 153 Minutes.

Tags:  Child Abduction, Abuse, Police Investigation,  Interrogation, Confinement, Thanksgiving, Mental Illness,  Survivalist, Pennsylvania.