Prisoners (2013)
Reviewed 09/13, © Stephen Bourne
Click here for the Prisoners movie review

Prisoners stars Hugh Jackman as self-reliant American handyman Keller Dover, desperate to find his missing six-year-old daughter who is believed to be one of two children kidnapped in broad daylight from their suburban Georgia neighbourhood. The film is directed by Denis Villeneuve and also stars Jake Gyllenhaal as local police detective Loki, Paul Dano as the mentally challenge accused Alex Jones, Maria Bello, Viola Davis, and Terrence Howard.

Here's a quick look at this movie's pressbook [?] stuff:

Frankly, the poster for this movie is awful. Jackman and Gyllenhaal's big wax mannequin-like heads take up most of the layout, with their eyes piercing out under furrowed brows merely suggests nobody in creative had a clue how to market this flick. What are they staring at? Are they installing a slow app on their smart phone? Are they doing long division in a foreign language? Are they stoned? Are they jonesing for some salty snacks? Weird. If they're expressing internal grief and turmoil, it ain't working. Maybe the design firm was just handed some stills to somehow make something movie poster-ish with in five minutes. Maybe it was in Jackman and Gyllenhaal's contracts that their heads had to each take up half the poster’s layout and couldn't overlap. A design by sales rep-slash-agent. I would have just gone with a simple, powerful image accentuated with the cast names above and the movie title with additional text below. The logo-like "Prisoners" title is pretty clever on its own, too. Just sayin'.

Turning to the official trailer for this picture, it initially seems as though you're told the entire story before getting the chance to see the movie. The trailer definitely punctuates the escalating sense of urgency felt in trying to find these two missing children and the culprit still at large. The intrigue sets in with the visual cues citing that a kind of maze is involved here. It suggests discovering the truth won't be a linear exercise in deductive reasoning for these characters or the audience sleuthing along. Great editing. Good stuff.

Checking out this movie's website at http://prisonersmovie.warnerbros.com/ serves up the prerequisite story synopsis, separate cast and crew bios, trailer and movie stills galleries, as well as device and Facebook wallpaper versions of the poster, and an embedded player featuring the film's soundtrack. It's fairly sparse of treasures for movie buffs searching for supporting material online. Production notes are curiously absent, but you will find an impressive Google+ page of clips and pics worth taking a look at, as well as a link to Warner Bros' growing Pinterest gallery of film catalogue goodies. All-in-all, it's a cleanly enough put together web presence that just needs one more interesting element to make this movie site as notable as the movie is. Reviewed 09/13, © Stephen Bourne.

Click here for the Prisoners movie review

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