"THEY DIDN'T CRY UNTIL I LEFT THEM!"

Imagine this, God forbid! You are a family man and one day your daughter goes missing, possibly kidnapped! What would you do? Leave it to the Nigerian Police to do their job, or take laws into your own hands because the prime suspect tells you this, "they didn't cry until I left them?!" 
Of course that is enough for you to go Bruce Lee on the brother, right?!

Meet Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman), an upstanding American citizen, deeply religious man, happily married to Grace Dover (Maria Bello), and a father of two, his son Ralph, and daughter Anna. 
One day he attends Thanksgiving dinner with his family at the house of their neighbors, the Birches who have two daughters, Eliza and Joy. After dinner, the families' young daughters, Anna Dover and Joy Birch, go missing. After a police hunt, an RV that had been parked in the neighborhood is found outside a gas station next to a wooded area. When Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) confronts Alex Jones (Paul Dano), the RV's driver, Jones tries to speed away but crashes into the trees.

Alex is revealed during Detective Loki's interrogation to have the approximate I.Q. of a ten-year-old and is released due to lack of evidence. While desperate Keller Dover confronts Alex at the parking lot of the police station as he is being released about the whereabouts of his little daughter Anna and her friend Joy, Alex Jones in a whisper utters these words, "they wouldn't cry till I left them." That marked the beginning of Keller's adventure to finding the little girls in what seems to be a race against time!

Personal surveillance by Keller convinces him that Alex knows where the girls are. He abducts and imprisons Alex in an abandoned apartment building that he owns. With the reluctant help of Joy's father, Franklin Birch (Terrence Howard), Keller repeatedly beats and interrogates Alex for days without any further information.

What is so exciting about this film are the film makers' ability to transit empathy into the audience. The audience gets to feel the pulse of a father who seems helpless as he watches his family fall apart due to the disappearance of his daughter but has no other choice but to go rogue, and this well achieved through Hugh Jackman's performance. 
The movie stylishly puts one into a state of limbo as viewers tends to assume they know who the villain is but thrills you when the real villain is revealed at the end.

The movie successfully achieves being called a thriller and is bound to keep you gripping your palms hard to the edges of your seat. With an easy going beginning, well paced tempo at the middle, and a well delivered and spectacular ending, 'Prisoners' is one movie that can be regarded one of the best thrillers of the year and a must watch.

Prisoners received positive reviews from critics. The film currently has an 81% approval rating on review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 213 reviews. Its consensus reads: "Prisoners has an emotional complexity and a sense of dread that makes for absorbing (and disturbing) viewing." 

Ed Gibbs of The Sun Herald wrote: "Not since Erskineville Kings, in 1999, has Hugh Jackman appeared so emotionally exposed on screen. It is an exceptional, Oscar-worthy performance." Metacritic provides a score of 74 out of 100, based on 46 reviews, indicating 'Generally favorable reviews.'

As of November 3, 2013, Prisoners has grossed $59,949,000 in North America and $42,400,000 in foreign countries, for a worldwide gross of $102,349,000.

Prisoners is a 2013 American thriller film directed by Denis Villeneuve. The film has an ensemble cast including Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Maria Bello,Terrence Howard, Melissa Leo, and Paul Dano. The plot focuses on the abduction of two young girls in Pennsylvania and the resulting search to find them.