Prisoners (2013)
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When two young girls go missing in a small town, a desperate father takes matters into his own hands while a detective hunts for the truth.
The story
In the fictional city of Conyers, Pennsylvania, the Dover and Birch families celebrate Thanksgiving together. After dinner, girls Anna Dover and Joy Birch go missing after playing on a parked RV. Detective Loki responds to a police call about an RV matching the description and arrests the man inside, Alex Jones. During interrogation, Loki realizes Alex's diminished IQ prevents him from planning a kidnapping and his RV contains no forensic evidence. After the police release Alex to his aunt, the father of one of the daughters, Keller Dover, becomes convinced of the suspect's guilt and takes matters into his own hands, leading to a tense and desperate search for the missing children.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
In Conyers, Pennsylvania, two girls, Anna Dover and Joy Birch, go missing after playing near an RV. Detective Loki arrests a man, Alex Jones, but finds little evidence. When the police release Alex, Keller Dover, Anna's father, kidnaps him and begins to torture him for information. Meanwhile, Loki investigates local sex offenders and finds a corpse in a priest's house. Loki eventually identifies a suspect, Bob Taylor, whose house contains evidence linking him to the girls. Keller continues to torture Alex, who mentions a 'maze'. Loki eventually discovers that the girls were abducted by a woman named Holly, who, along with her husband, had a 'war on God' and abducted children to create 'demons' out of their parents. In a final confrontation, Loki kills Holly and rescues Anna, while the truth of the kidnappers' motives is revealed.
- First release year
- 2013
- Runtime (minutes)
- 153
- Production countries
- United States
- Original languages
- English
- Directors
- Denis Villeneuve
- Writers
- Aaron Guzikowski · writer
- Genres
- crime thriller; crime drama; psychological thriller
- Themes
- parental desperation; moral ambiguity; justice vs. law
- Tone and mood
- tense; dread; disturbing
- Setting
- Conyers, Pennsylvania during the Thanksgiving season.
- Premise and plot tags
- kidnapping; police procedural; vigilante justice
- Source material / true-story basis
- Original screenplay based on a short story by Aaron Guzikowski.
- Reception
- The film was a financial and critical success, receiving generally favorable reviews for its emotional complexity and performances.
- Reported review scores
- Rotten Tomatoes · score: 81% · scale: percentage · review count: 249; Metacritic · score: 70 · scale: 100 · review count: 53
- Awards and nominations
- Best Cinematography · Academy Awards · Nomination; Best Cinematography · American Society of Cinematographers · Nomination; Best Supporting Actor of the Year · Hollywood Film Festival · 2013 · Win
- Production trivia
- The script was originally based on a short story about a father who puts a man in a well.; The script was partially inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Heart'.; The production was moved from Connecticut to Georgia for budgetary reasons.
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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