A family man abducts and tortures the young man he suspects of kidnapping and killing his daughter.

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Two little girls are kidnapped. As the days pass, tensions mount in the rainy suburb of Boston where they lived, especially since the prime suspect, the strange Alex Jones, has already been released by the police. Faced with the police dragging their heels in the investigation and his wife falling apart, Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman), the father of one of the girls, decides to take charge. He kidnaps Jones and beats him in the hope he’ll talk. Dover tells the father (Terrence Howard) of the other girl what he’s done. Meanwhile the detective assigned to the case (Jake Gyllenhaal) is led to another disturbed young man with a passion for labyrinths and snakes...

By virtue of the plot – a father searches for his kidnapped daughter within a cold cinematic setting, and thanks to the talents of cinematographer Richard Deakins (a Coen Brothers regular), Prisoners is in league with Mystic River, The Silence of the Lambs and Gone Baby Gone, even if it doesn’t quite keep up with the latter. Not bad for the Hollywood debut of a director – it probably helps that he’s French-Canadian Denis Villeneuve (director of the excellent Incendies) – especially since the screenplay was long considered too complicated to shoot. Guaranteed to cause shivers!