Prisoners Reviews
MovieCrypt.com
The film's pace is an endurance test... (but) everyone gets to share in the dread of the final revelations. Does the end justify the means?
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4.0
Atlantic City Weekly
The brutality and torture displayed by the "hero" of this piece makes for several uncomfortable moments.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
CinemaBlend.com
It's rare to find a film that really works on all levels, but that's exactly what Denis Villeneuve's has constructed with Prisoners.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4.5/5
ReviewExpress.com
Edge of Your Seat Thriller
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Seven Days
Roger Deakins uses erratic flashes and glimmers of light to suggest that deliverance is always close at hand, but not close enough.
Full Review
| Original Score: 9/10
Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)
While all this industrial strength acting is going on, there's also a pretty engrossing mystery afoot that keeps your attention.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Cinemalogue.com
It remains gripping because of the realistic grounding of its characters and the raw vulnerability in the performances.
Movieline
This is about as intense as movies can get. Superb performances and great direction will keep you on the edge of your seat.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4.5/5
Flix Capacitor
Dark, sombre and deadly serious, Prisoners has more than fifty shades of grey in it, but Rogers Deakins ensures that each and every one is great to look at.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Observer [UK]
It's a tense and engaging thriller with some big ideas, only some of which it is able to carry.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Movie Talk
Hollywood thrillers that feature vigilantes usually pander to our baser instincts. Prisoners doesn't let us off the hook so easily.
The Ooh Tray
A story too densely plotted to feel real but too well built to fall over.
Tucson Weekly
A good film with a shoddy ending that keeps it from being great.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Quad City Times (Davenport, IA)
"Prisoners" is a dark, thought-provoking thriller for the grown-up audience that made "Silence of the Lambs" a hit.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
Antagony & Ecstasy
The very model of an Oscarbaiting exercise in social critique and deeply ambiguous character drama. Except for the part where the script makes it feel more like a trashy beach read.
Full Review
| Original Score: 6/10
Birmingham Mail
In his first film since Skyfall, the cinematography by Torquay-born Roger Deakins is as stunning as you'd expect from a true craftsman with ten unfulfilled Oscar nominations since The Shawshank Redemption in 1995.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
GeekNation
I like the film's solid, old-fashioned style, the way it resembles the smart adult thrillers of the '70s and assumes the audience is savvy enough to follow the details.
Spectrum (St. George, Utah)
Deserves credit for artfully presenting its nightmarish moral dilemmas with little pretense or grandstanding.
Full Review
| Original Score: B+
Shadows on the Wall
A vivid reminder of the value of patience in storytelling, this exquisitely assembled thriller takes its time to reveal every wrinkle and character.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4.5/5
Austin Chronicle
It's a veritable shoo-in for an Oscar nod this year, and one of the more disturbing films to come out of a major studio in ages.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
