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Aishu Anil Rhetoric 101 Hackney 16 October 2013 Prisioners: The Critics Point of View Denis Villenueve directed Prisoners, a mysterious thriller about a dad who is willing to push all limits in order to find information about the kidnapping of his young daughter and her friend. The 2 families hire fidgety detective Loki, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, to hopefully assist them in determining who the kidnapper is. But, when Keller, played by Hugh Jackman, isnt all that amused with how fast Loki does his investigation, he takes matters into his own hands. Critics, Ken Hanke and Bruce Bennett, both review Prisoners and have a few similarities as well as differences in their opinions about the film. Even though both critics come to the conclusion that Prisoners is indulging and interesting, Hanke seems to have more focus on the actors while Bennett summarizes the film more thoroughly. Ken Hankes review of Prisoners begins with a small comparison to the 1991 film, The Silence of the Lambs. He says that Prisoners is so close that it borrows a trick or two from the film. He then dedicates a brief paragraph to summarize the films general plot. Hanke continues to go on in detail about how each of the actors are given the chance to do something big and shoot for a possible Oscar Award. He describes how Hugh Jackman got to bellow and bulge his veins, while Jake Gyllenhaal was allowed his share of Oscar Bigness with his neverexplained grimaces, twitches and blinking. Hanke claims that acting-wise, this is one busy movie. Overall, Hankes review seems to touch on all the actors and the big chances this film has provided, for them to get a possible nomination for an Oscar.

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Bennetts review starts out almost identical to Hankes, a summary of the film, only its a much larger summarization. He claims that Prisoners is one of the best films of the year so far and then briefly explains each of the characters and why the actors chosen were great choices. After this paragraph, he dedicates the rest of his review to summarizing this new psychological thriller, describing the plot thoroughly to the reader. He makes it clear that the basic plot of the movie is about a blue collar carpenter with a survivalist bent who finds out his precious daughter and her friend had been abducted. The suspect of this abduction happens to be the driver of the R.V where the 2 children were last seen by, who looks creepy and turns out to have the cognitive ability of a child. He continues with summarizing the important parts of the film and makes his final comment about the script being so expertly written. Though both reviews have their differences, the content found have a few similarities as well one of them being the general conclusion. Hank mentions at the end of his review that the film has an engrossing mystery afoot that keeps you attention, while Bennett makes a similar comment being that it is both absorbing and exhausting in equal measure. Though both critics agree that the plot is absorbing, Hanke believes that this was only possible due the industrial strength acting that the actors performed. Bennett, on the other hand, believes that the plot was as strong as it was because of the films precision and unpredictability. Even though, there were differences in why the movie was absorbing, both critics still drew the same general conclusion. Prisoners had an interesting and chilling plot as well as brilliant actors to play the characters. Hanke and Bennett definitely make quite a few valid points in their reviews and each of them had their own unique way of breaking the film down for the reader. They both agreed that Prisoners had an indulging plot while Hanke focused on the actors and Bennett chose to

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summarize the film more thoroughly. Though they both varied slightly in content, the reviews successfully serve their purpose to the reader.

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Works Cited Bennett, Bruce. "Prisoners." Rotten Tomatoes. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. Hank, Ken. "Prisoners (R)." Rotten Tomatoes. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2013.