Enemy Written by Javier Gullón Directed by Denis Villeneuve Canada and Spain, 2013 Enemy belongs to a subgenre of cinema known roughly as Well-Made Movies That Should Only Be Consumed Once. No doubt, this nightmarish suspense thriller is designed as something of a puzzle box, offering up clues as to what’s really going on to …
With every awards season comes a flood of “best of” compilations and top ten lists, but film scores can be tricky in that department. After all, different composers are operating on different levels, each one working toward a separate goal in his or her respective picture. Brian Tyler aims for something propulsive and heroic in Iron …
As with any year, some people have begun arguing that 2013 was a bad year for film, because of the expected glut of effects-heavy blockbusters that litter the multiplexes each summer, or because there was a lack of auteur-driven storytelling for the majority of the year. Though it is indeed frustrating that studios hold their …
Overstuffed with an A-list cast, Denis Villeneuve’s (Incendies, Polytechnique) Prisoners is a funereal and often shocking meditation on what people are capable of doing for their loved ones. Permeated with savagery and blood, this is a film that forces ghastly situations on the audience which they’ve likely seen before but are hopefully not entirely numb to processing from a victim’s point of view. The drive behind what holds a family together for better or worse is showcased in painful detail. Gruesome, agonizing, and distressing, Prisoners goes for the jugular and leaves everyone wincing at the hideous view of the human condition that it leaves in its wake.
As fancy as it may feel, and as stacked as its ensemble is, Prisoners is pretty much a very well-acted and technically proficient feature-length episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. To be as generous as possible, you might simply take out that NBC drama and insert the grimmest crime procedural on the air you can think of. Like the best cop dramas, Prisoners is compelling and twisty, red herrings planted with care throughout.