Hacker Cinema
Prisoners
2013 · Film · 153 min
Directed by Denis Villeneuve
After his six-year-old daughter is abducted, a desperate father takes justice into his own hands when he loses faith in the detective leading the investigation, setting both men on a collision course as the search descends into obsession and moral compromise.
7 positive3 neutralfrom 10 commenters
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14 comments on Hacker News
> Rama may turn out unrecognizable after the Hollywood script jockeys have been through with it, as happened to Foundation.
Denis Villeneuve (Dune, Blade Runner 2049, Arrival, Prisoners, etc) is set to direct and is writing the script as well:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendezvous_with_Rama#Film
Though it may be a little while since he first has to release adaptation of Dune Messiah, and a Bond film is probably next:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Villeneuve#Upcoming_projects
Yeah I feel this. I just watched Prisoners for the first time and didn't realize it was Villanueve. It felt like a much more impactful and 'whole' film than Dune Part One.
Also Prisoners and Enemy were impactful imo (and Sicario of course). I feel like where Villeneuve fails in that respect, filmmakers such as Nicholas Winding Refn succeed— I just watched Drive for the first time (I know I know), and it was one of the best cinematic experiences I’ve had in probably 5 years. Even though the film had a bit of a distant, hands-off quality, one connected with the film and characters completely (a lot of that maybe had to do with Gosling’s impeccable performance, but I’m sure the director had something to do with it).
what about Prisoners, In the bedroom, The guilty (2018), Good time, Oldboy (original, not from Hollywood though), Collateral, End of watch, Training day, Drive, etc. - all these were released after and they are better movies (most of them more thrillers than action though, but some straight up action), I can't really recommend exactly same alternative since I don't watch stupid action flicks like Fugitive, now that I have much more options than in 90s
Until recently, Denis Villeneuve's movies were in this range as well:
* Prisoners: US$ 46M
* Sicario: US$ 30M
* Arrival: US$ 47M
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Villeneuve#Reception
His first three movies were <$7M. He went up market (>$160M) with BR2049 and Dune.
Plenty of recent movies do that. Sorting by release date: The Father, Joker, Parasite, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Hacksaw Ridge, Room, Gone Girl, Whiplash, Prisoners, 12 Years a Slave, Django Unchained.
* https://www.imdb.com/chart/top/?sort=us,desc
And that's just going back ten years.
Sicario? Did we watch the same film? I mean sure, that's the content they are dealing with-- gratuitous violence and murder is entrenched in that world and they told a story in that world. As far as film-making and story-telling goes, Sicario will probably always be a top 50 if not top 20 film for me. Also encourage anyone to check out Villeneuve's older less known movies (most of course know Arrival and Blade Runner 2049), such as Prisoners, Enemy and Incendies-- all fantastic movies.
Wow, all of them, you must watch a ton of movies too. So you know my difficulty in finding new ones, maybe! Ides of March I haven't seen, that looks great! And I actually agree with your ranking perfectly. I only feel bad that nightcrawler and prisoners are side by side, when there's a pretty wide gulf between them in terms of how memorable they are.
I assume you've seen Place Beyond the Pines since it has Ryan Gosling, and Requiem for a Dream I think everyone's seen, and idk if you'd like Irréversible; I didn't because its story doesn't quite keep up with its violence, but it is quite a jarring film.
Frankly, excluding movies that are only exhibitions of violence and don't have a story to match, there are precious few movies in this vein! Precious few films have the power to truly shock the audience, at least in this way. OH! Cloverfield Lane is pretty solid. Very tense.
Note that I'm only mentioning movies that are striking for their tension or sudden spikes of violence, since that was the original topic. Just remembered Fatal Attraction, too!
Ooh, and Ex Machina in its own way.
Oh I would definitely love to have any recommendations you'll give me, I feel like I've seen so many movies that it's hard to find good ones now.
In the emotional vein of the movies discussed above:
Nightcrawler is very very good and very unusual. Prisoners is very good though more ordinary in its plot and characters and I found that I forgot about it after a while and didn't realize I'd seen it until I was rewatching it... It's not especially tense but it's well written. Drive is an incredible noir thriller. Goodfellas is another one that has unforgettable moments that will force you to just clench your fists, even if in the end the story left me feeling a bit empty. I should probably throw out American History X too, which is a different sort of movie but still has that feeling of "oh my God did that just happen?"
> In Tarkovskian terms, they have no soul.
Isn't that basically true of every modern mainstream director? I can't think of anyone I would call Tarkovskian.
> whilst technically impressive, lack something fundamental and come across as sterile.
I try not to be curmudgeonly about big-budget filmmaking - I don't think there's anything inherently bad about it, but surely there's some truth to the idea that Villeneuve "sold out" starting with Sicario, right? I'd say Prisoners, Enemy, Incendies, and Polytechnique are all extremely good films, but they're precisely the ones that most people haven't seen. I don't think there's any way you could call those films "sterile", though Enemy certainly has a dry intellectual air to it.
I think what you might be latching onto is the aesthetic of Villeneuve's films. They tend to be gritty and realistic, which can read as soulless but I don't think it's quite the same thing. Calling a movie soulless speaks to its (lack of) spiritual / emotive vision, and while none of his films have the slow pacing of a Tarkovsky or their sense for atmosphere, I would say his early movies (and probably BR2049) don't lack a vision. They have something they want to say, and that message isn't a nihilistic or misanthropic one.
Have you seen any of his movies prior to Arrival and Sicario?
Incendies, Enemy, and Prisoners are all quite emotional in distinct ways. Although, I personally feel Arrival was definitely emotional in its own way.
Before The Rain about love and war in Macedonia. Amazing and impactful film.
Time of the Gypsies by Emir Kusturica - just go in cold to this, one of my favorite movies. Featuring musical score from the incomparable Gorman Bregovic.
Enemy by Villeneuve (or literally anything from this director; also check out the compelling Incendies, and Sicario of course; Prisoners is also amazing)
Literally pick any movie from Iranian director Asghar Farhadi. The Salesman is probably my favorite from him. Very impactful and each of his movies shows a compelling and unique slice of life.
Minor correction: Syfy doesn't produce The Expanse.
The Expanse was entirely conceived, financed and produced by Alcon, an independent film production company. Outside the US, Netflix has the exclusive distribution rights, and in the US, the show is also carried by Amazon. Alcon also produced Blade Runner 2049 and Villeneuve's earlier film Prisoners.
No doubt Alcon needs someone else to pay for the distribution rights now, and I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up on Netflix or Amazon, both of which are pushing sci-fi pretty hard. Amazon would be a good fit: The Expanse was co-produced with the Sean Daniel Company, who are also working on the new adaptation of The Witcher, and whose new production startup Mythos recently signed with Amazon Studios.
Yes, to me this seems like a misinterpretation of the data. Growing up in a small rural blue collar town in the wifi-less farm country outside of Pittsburgh, we had our fair share of "crazies" that everybody knew about -- the ominous rotting but not abandoned house up the road that everybody stayed away from because of unsettling rumors. These data points are easily overlooked or dismissed as local lore or "rural legends." If you've seen the movie Prisoners [2013], it's startlingly accurate in this aspect.