Humanities loss in Prisoners (2013)

Introduction 

The story of Prisoners is about morality and religion which are both explored through Hugh Jackman’s Keller Dover. An honest man turned to do horrible acts he would never have done through his daughter's disappearance. Prisoners explores this man's descent into desperation and violence.    

Methods

The clearest theme in Prisoners is that of morality. What is deemed right or wrong. And this is shown through the torture Keller Dover puts Paul Dano’s Alex as he questions him about his daughter’s disappearance. His use of torture is his last way to help his little girl because for him each day that passes by is a day that his daughter doesn't have time to lose. 

So what are my reactions to his way of finding his daughter?

The only way to answer that is to put myself in his shoes, because clearly what he is doing is wrong. He has taken an innocent man that had no evidence he was involved in the kidnapping and begins to torture him. In any other circumstance hearing that statement will leave you disgusted by Keller’s acts but when you put your shoes in his then his desperate nature is rationalised. If I was in his position I would do anything in my power to find someone I love. 

The movie involves Terrence Howard and Viola Davis’s characters Franklin and Nancy Birch in the act of torture because it’s a message that any walk of life would do the same and would accept someone to act this way through these difficult circumstances.

These characters are forced to act against what they believe in because the act of desperation means that if they do nothing, the people they treasure the most will suffer, and for a parent that is the worst thing to happen. 

It is as Holly Jones’s character states in the movie, that the power taking a child away from their parents has on individuals. The dark comes out. Leaving a shell of what they used to be behind.

And Denis Villeneuve agrees with that statement because he purposefully allowed the audience to hear what Alex said to Keller about his daughter. And by giving us that information, we, just like Violet Davis’s Nancy Birch accept the actions of the two fathers beating a man half to death. Which in essence proves Holly Jones right.

But Keller isn’t the only one using torture because what is fascinating is that even though Keller puts Alex through physical torture, Alex also puts Keller through psychological torture, because he is withholding information from him.

It is as if Alex has put Keller in a maze where he cannot escape and thus putting Keller through a tough decision to stop and accept defeat or to continue. It becomes a game of cat and mouse Who can hold out longer? But for Keller the way he uses religion allows him to continue his torture. 

Religion 

At the beginning of Prisoners, Keller prays before his son shoots a deer. Throughout Keller torturing Alex he prays before hand, Jake Gyllenhaal’s Detective Loki has a Priest on his watchlist who was found to have a dead body beneath his house. Religion is throughout the movie and it is used in a way to show the pointlessness of Religion. 

For me, Religion can be good and can be bad, it all depends on how a person uses it. For example when someone uses Religion as a comfort mechanism for the after life, that is a good way to use it because it makes the idea of death less scary but Religion can also be used for bad such as if a person uses it as an excuse for murder. Or in the movie’s terms, an excuse for torture. 

Again It isn’t a coincidence that at the beginning of the movie Keller prays before his son shoots a deer, because what this sets up is how Keller uses religion as a way of forgiveness. Him praying before the deer’s death makes that act of killing it acceptable, just like how he prays before torturing Alex makes the act of torture also acceptable. 

So what does this say about Religion?

What Religion means in Prisoners is how meaningless it actually is. And Holly Jones and her husband began kidnapping children to prove that point. She even says in the movie “Making children disappear is war we wage with God, it makes people lose their faith. Turns them into demons like you”. And the scary thing is, we see her to be right.

Keller, an ordinary, working class father is changed into an animal who is just full of rage and anger. He has no quarrels about torturing someone to find his daughter. The man who prays before each torture, using his prayers as an excuse to go ahead and beat Alex because he is asking for forgiveness. Or Keller's wife Grace Dover who uses prescription drugs to help her sleep and function each day, to Franklin Birch helping Keller torture a man and Nancy Birch accepting what her husband is doing.

But the best way the movie proves that point is when Detective Loki finds Holly Jones’s husband dead underneath the house of the child molesting Priest who was trying to protect children. Religion has no sides and it cannot help everyone but it is viewed as something we should all follow but even the people who preach God’s words to unimaginable acts.

Holly Jones takes innocent children to drive their parents into doing unthinkable acts to prove a point. We live in a sick and sadistic world where a lot of messed up things happen, and in the aftermath we all pray for the victims, waiting for it to happen again. 

Prisoners

In a way, everyone in Prisoners is a prisoner of something. Keller is a prisoner to his tortures acts. The children are Prisoners to Holly Jones. Alex is a prisoner to Holly and Keller. And Detective Loki is a Prisoner to the case he finds difficult to solve. 

And in the end, Prisoners shows us that the world is full of sick people and in a moments notice we can end up like those people, we just have to have faith that we don’t.