PRISONERS, a harrowing 2013 crime drama, was directed by Denis Villeneuve off a screenplay from Aaron Guzikowski (Papillon, 2017 version).  Across 153 minutes, it’s relentlessly dark and punishing but powerfully acted, top honors going to Hugh Jackman and Melissa Leo.

“You know the most important thing your granddad ever taught me? Hmm? Be ready. Hurricane, flood, whatever it ends up being. No more food gets delivered to the grocery store, gas stations dry up. People just turn on each other, and uh, all of a sudden all that stands between you and being dead is you.”

Thanksgiving, at a city in Pennsylvania. Two families, each with two children, get together and enjoy dinner. As the adults hang out, the kids pair off. Time to go home comes, but the two youngest, little girls, are not in the house. A frantic search in the neighborhood points to a parked RV the kids had idly looked at. It’s no longer there. Interception of the vehicle by detective ‘Loki’ (Jake Gyllenhaal) arrests suspiciously behaving ‘Alex Jones’ (Paul Dano), but forensic evidence is absent and the young man’s childish I.Q. indicates he wouldn’t have the mental capacity to pull off a kidnapping. Distraught father ‘Keller Drover’ (Hugh Jackman) is convinced Alex is guilty, and takes investigation (and ‘interrogation’) into his own hands. His wife ‘Grace’ (Maria Bello) is unaware of this, and that he’s been reluctantly joined by the other parents, Franklin & Nancy Birch (Terrence Howard & Viola Davis). As crucial days pass, Loki doggedly follows stray leads while Keller secretly and ruthlessly questions Alex, who has been reported missing by ‘Holly’ (Melissa Leo) his adopted mother.

Cold, hard and tense, as befits the grindingly awful situation, marred only by some character tics deployed by Gyllenhall (and what sort of police chief would take the insubordinate guff Loki tosses out?) and the stunned parents played (well) by Howard and Davis come off as almost incidental. *

Quibbles are subsumed by the gripping entirety of the piece. Jackman’s wrenching torment and rage is galvanic. Leo is likewise outstanding, conveying righteous certainty in a quieter, more unsettling fashion. Roger Deakins mood-enshrouding cinematography earned an Oscar nomination, his 11th of sixteen. Though set in fictional ‘Conyers’, Pennsylvania, it was shot in Georgia, around Atlanta and six nearby towns, including one named Conyers.

The production cost was $46,000,000, the box office came in $122,127,000 globally, half of that at home where it listed #58 for ’13.

With Dylan Minette, Wayne Duvall, David Dastmalchian (extra creepy), Len Cariou and Dennis Christopher.

* His well-documented personal issues aside, Terrence Howard’s work is impressive (especially in Hustle & Flow) but in this dense drama I guiltily found myself wondering how many movies feature him either crying or right on the verge of doing so. The guy has very expressive eyes, for sure, but it’s almost as if casting directors have a heading for “best at weeping” with Howard on speed-dial. The same list under ” readily subjected to abuse” and they reflex reach for Jennifer Jason Leigh.