"Prisoners" on BLU RAY – A Review Of The 2013 Film…

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“…He Knows Where They Are!” – Prisoners on BLU RAY

Young parents Keller and Grace Dover walk over to the suburban home of Franklin and Nancy Birch in the November cold for a Thanksgiving Dinner involving neighbours, laughter and bad trumpet playing (Hugh Jackman, Maria Bello, Terence Howard and Viola Davis). Their respective daughters of 7 and 6 Anna and Eliza happily play upstairs with a pet while the adults below drink and reminisce. That is until both children go outside to play - and unaccompanied - addle up to the back of a muddied RV parked suspiciously by the kerb in broad daylight...

Although I thoroughly despise material that uses children being hurt as entertainment - "Prisoners" beats the pants off so many supposed thrillers because it reeks of intelligence (a fantastic and clever script) and has a cast that emotionally rivets you to the screen every second they're up there. It's also prepared to be silent - ordinary even - thereby making some scenes disturbingly close to how real life actually is. It's unnerving, creepy and stomach churning in places too (there are monsters out there).

In order for this to work you need major league actors - and lots of them - and right down to a repentant Paedophile Priest - even the small parts are perfectly cast. Hugh Jackman plays Keller Dover - a redecorator/builder and a 'prepare for the worst' deer-shooting survivalist - while his wife Grace believes she'll and her family will be 'safe' with him. Mild-mannered neighbours and friends Franklin and Nancy Birch have the opposite dynamic - the wife is the boss while her husband is more reflective.  But when a local simpleton Alex Jones is found singing in the front seat of the squalid RV and arrested but won't talk - both sets of parents have their patience and nerves tested. Frustrated by the cops lack of progress and working to the letter of the law - and with the days passing and time running out for their abducted daughters - Alpha Male Keller decides to take matters into his own hands...

Into this emotional cauldron comes Detective Loki who’s solved every case he's ever been given. He may at times seem too detached from the parent's pain and rage - but he's a man who spots things and sees through the lies in people (a mesmerizing Jake Gyllenhaal). Obsessive yet law-abiding - he instinctively feels that spaced out Alex Jones who can't say much but can still drive an RV easily - is lying - sickly concealing the whereabouts of the girls and enjoying the cat and mouse game too (an Oscar performance yet again from Paul Dano - the preacher in "There Will Be Blood"). But is he? And what about his heart-broken mother (subtle brilliance from Melissa Leo) who has defended this social outcast all her life - despite her religion-obsessed husband leaving years back and abandoning them both. Keller even goes after her. In the meantime Grace Dover (a ragged looking Maria Bello) simply breaks at the enormity of her child being lost - while the stoical Nancy folds her arms, grits her teeth and reconciles herself to what both fathers must do - go over demarcation lines you really shouldn't cross...

The genius of Aaron Guzikowski's script and Dennis Villeneuve's Direction is that one whole hour in - and you're absolutely none the wiser as to who is the bad guy and who isn't. And it has to be said that some of the violence is horrible and cringing. But what keeps you watching is the sheer visceral power of the actors. The dance between Jackman and Gyllenhaal is fantastic cinema - both men barely holding on to any humanity or faith as the frustration mounts and suspicions arise (exactly the sick kind of mental torture the abductor wants to inflict on them). And you also sit there questioning just how far a determined parent would go to get their child back (abusing a man who may or may not be an innocent).

Special mention has to be made of the picture quality of the BLU RAY. Defaulted to Full Aspect (which fills up the whole screen) - "Prisoners" is starkly gorgeous and truly beautiful throughout. Often without any music - the blunt and stainless steel cold angles ratchet up the tension to unbearable levels (fear of what is happening to the children). It's the Cinematography genius of ROGER DEAKINS ("The Shawshank Redemption" and "True Grit"). Scene after scene is filled with it: casing a house in the pouring rain at night - Jones walking his dog as Keller spies on him from a nearby truck - the decaying body tied to a chair in the basement of a suspect's house - Detective Loki interviewing a sex offender you can't see behind a filthy pane of glass - Loki's tired bulging eyes and unkempt stubble (hasn't slept for days) as he leans forward into a computer monitor scouring the screen for any detail that will help - closing in on the jagged bark of a tree... The framing of everything is the unsung hero of the movie - adding unbelievable depth and genuine unease that serves right up until the superb and clever ending.

There are two Extras - the short "Every Moment Counts" and the more extensive "Powerful Performers" which features enthusiastic interviews with all the principal actors, Director Dennis Villeneuve and Producers Kara Davis and Broderick Johnson. But don't watch "Powerful Performers" before you watch the movie - it rather clumsily gives away far too much in terms of the twisting plot.

The brilliant and unsettling "Prisoners" had my wife and I on the edge of our seats unable to press the pause button to desperately go to the loo. Now that's how you put the 'thrill' in thriller.

Job done I'd say...

"The Help". A Review Of The 2011 Film Now Available On BLU RAY.

"…You Is Kind…You Is Smart…You Is Important…"

Some have criticised "The Help" and its depiction of racism as way too easy on the eye and cheery on the ear - slyly dodging the 'physically violent' reality of segregation in 1960's Southern America in favour of entertainment. But I think that's being massively unfair to the movie's genuine achievement - it's brilliant portrayal of the 'mental' apartheid levelled every day at black people - which ran hand-in-hand with the opposite side of the coin - the love given to white children by black maids. This is a story you can't help but feel 'needed' to be told - and a rare balancing act that got it right on so many fronts. In fact I was left with two stark impressions as the end credits rolled (a) this movie is a real gem in a sea of sequels and mediocrity and (b) how did the likeable but essentially gimmicky fluff that is "The Artist" ever take the Best Picture Oscar over this?

Adapted from Kathryn Stockett's first book of the same name (itself the subject of a nasty court case over character likeness - the lawsuit was eventually thrown out) and Directed by Tate Taylor in 2011 - "The Help" has a virtual flood of truly blistering performances from black and white actresses at the top of their game - women given meaty material they want to do justice to. It's resulted in global box office success and a whopping 53 nominations - followed by as many wins (BAFTA and OSCAR included).

While Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer and Aunjanue Ellis have rightly been praised for their layered portrayals - I was blown away by the most difficult role of all - that of the odious Hilly Holbrook played by Bryce Dallas Howard. All nail-manicured, freckled-faced and shocked at any suggestion of impropriety - Howard is awesome as a truly hateful white woman with meanness literally hardwired into her DNA. Hilly Holbrook lords it over her cackling local ladies with the fist of a dictator - she sits in her car and spitefully takes pleasure as she watches a black maid who crossed her be arrested by white cops - in the bathroom she marks the individual toilet sheets with a pen to see if her black maid crosses that sanitation line. You literally despise this vacuous witch with every molecule of your being and would gladly whack her across her perfectly combed-back hairdo with a large still-hot skillet. Jessica Chastain too as the blonde and ample social outcast Celia Foote who is perceived as a husband robber but is just lost - another belter of a performance. Lesley Jordan as the less-than-subtle newspaper editor, Sissy Spacek as the mentally ailing mum, Mary Steenburgen as a New York book editor - so many class acts.

The story goes like this - a headstrong 22-year Southern gal called Eugenia 'Skeeter' Phelan decides to step up from her bottom-of-the-ladder job on a local newspaper as a columnist on 'cleaning tips' and become a real writer (anything to avoid her mother's constant scheming towards marriage). Her subject matter is going to be the black maids who raised the white children of Alabama and their side of the story. The author will be 'Anonymous' and the book will be entitled "The Help". But of course because of fear and intimidation it doesn't prove easy to document and the journey tests Skeeter's loyalties and personal courage to the maximum too (spot-on casting in the lovely and hugely talented Emma Stone). It proves even more traumatic to her 'one-of-the-gals' mother Charlotte (a stupendous turn from Allison Janney) who makes a staggeringly crass mistake on the back of white peer pressure.

But to get started - Skeeter needs a cohort. So when a middle-aged maid she knows gets fired - Skeeter gets her first interviewee. Giving a deeply touching and humane performance, Viola Davis plays Aibileen Clark. Aibileen is 53, works 8 am to 4pm six days a week as a cook, cleaner, maid and full-time nanny (she's mothered 17 children in her life) - and all for peanuts money. And like her mother and grandmother before here - she is virtually a house slave to whatever white family will employ her. This time it's Raleigh and Elizabeth Leefolt and their 3-year daughter Mae Mobley. Aibileen has also lost her grown-up son Treelore to haphazard white working practices and now her job over a trumped-up 'theft of silver' charge. Aibileen may be reluctant at first - but when she sees the sincerity of Skeeter - and feels the need to tell the truth - the stories and details of home-by-home racism come pouring out. But Aibileen loves children - and even when useless mom Elizabeth callously fires her - Aibileen grabs the vulnerable and hurting child Mae Mobley - and in tears - reiterates her mantra of life positivity to her (its dialogue titles this review).

Aibileen's best friend is Minny Jackson - an ace cook and rotund force of nature (despite her husband's occasional beatings). After a hilarious incident involving pie and a non-nutritional substance contained within it (a really great joke that is milked for a good twenty minutes) - she too becomes involved (an unbelievably good Octavia Spencer).

Skeeter's nanny is the elderly and wise Constantine (beautifully played by veteran actress Cicely Tyson) - a source of love, encouragement and constancy in Skeeter's life. Skeeter has so many warm memories of her. Constantine pleating her hair on the porch as a child, Constantine comforting her as young teenager on prom night when the local boys cruelly label her as 'ugly'. But Skeeter can't find out why Constantine suddenly left after 29 years of loyal service. What her mum is hiding is later played out to chilling effect. Allison Janney's character Charlotte is verbally browbeaten into firing Constantine by some cold-blooded Daughter Of The South for some menial infringement. And as Charlotte closes the screen-door on a woman who has given her family a lifetime of love - her trembling hurt is raw like an open wound. It's absolutely heartbreaking. It can't have been an easy scene for even the experienced Janney to do. Her character's later redemption of sorts is convincing and moving.

Getting back to the darker side - there are scenes that shock - make you feel deeply uncomfortable. Black people stream up the concrete steps at the side of the cinema marked `colored entrance' - rich beauty-parlour white mothers talk about diseases being passed from negroes to their white children through toilets in the presence of their maids (they actually try to pass a bill to build separate latrines in every home) and worst of all - the chilling reading out of the "Mississippi" Law Book which will have you wincing in your seat in disbelief. There's the word 'nigra' used as a weapon - the hypocrisy of raising 'benefit' money for children in Africa - the husband who quickly bails from the dinner table as his black maid asks for a loan to put both of her sons through college…

Filmed on location in Greenwood, Mississippi - the homes and interiors are all real - and Stephen Goldblatt's incredible cinematography of the local scenery gives all of its 146 minutes a deeply rich hue. Better still - it's defaulted to 1.85:1 aspect ratio - so the picture fills your entire screen (no bars top or bottom). It means that the BLU RAY image is full-on beautiful all of the time. Add to this a gorgeous and emotive score by THOMAS NEWMAN ("The Shawshank Redemption", "Green Mile", "The Road To Perdition" etc) and the whole thing feels special the moment it opens. The only downer for me came at the film's end in the form of the ubiquitous saccharine ballad - the cheesy and formulaic 'Living Proof' by Mary J. Blige. It would have been far better to simply play out to Newman's affecting music - and classier too.

EXTRAS: even though it's only 24 minutes long - the 'Making Of' is genuinely informative and even moving in places. The Author Kathryn Stockett and Director Tate Taylor are from Jackson, Mississippi and have known each other since childhood. More importantly they both came from broken homes and had black maids whom they loved and admired. It was a story they felt had to be told. Combining this with the magic touch of Steven Spielberg (one of the Executive Producers) - and you begin to understand why and how the lovely tone of the film was achieved and maintained - the right people were let do the job and not some Hollywood name. At just under 12 minutes duration - the 'In Their Own Words...' extra where Tate Taylor and Octavia Spencer talk to real 'Maids of Mississippi' is too short - but what there is of it - is wonderfully insightful and uplifting.

To sum up - touching, funny, horrifying and ultimately moving - "The Help" blew my family and myself away.

Well done to Kathryn Stockett, Tate Taylor, DreamWorks and all the good souls who fought to see it made.

BLU RAY Specifications:
PICTURE: 1080p High Def, 1.85:1 Aspect Ratio
AUDIO: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1; French, Spanish and Russian Dolby Digital 5.1
SUBTITLES: English SDH, French, Spanish, Russian, and Ukrainian
EXTRAS:
1. The Making Of The Help: From Friendship To Film (24 minutes)
2. In Their Own Words: A Tribute To The Maids Of Mississippi (12 minutes)
3. Deleted Scenes With Introductions by Director Tate Taylor (3 scenes)
4. "The Living Proof" Video (by Mary J. Blige)