Prisoners is a superb and hauntingly beautiful film which you should give your complete attention to-no multitasking or bathroom breaks allowed. Every moment of Prisoners is important. Not one line, gesture or moment is wasted-everything furthers the plot. People who make movies should watch Prisoners to see an example of how to reveal clues without treating your viewers like they are idiots-show, don’t tell. Prisoners has an excellently crafted story that does not give in to tropes or stereotypes. There is profanity and violence, but all of it is completely necessary and not excessive since it is not glorified, but illustrates serious consequences. The story is about the response to two girls being kidnapped. This response has powerful spiritual and historical consequences. I have said that despite being a Christian, I don’t think that I would respond as a Christian should if faced with someone who hurt a child or an animal or raped anyone. Prisoners explores how “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world (Ephesians 6:12)” and how our failure or success at practicing our beliefs in real world situations will either plunge the answers further into darkness or bring everything to light. I think that there is even more to Prisoners than can be explored in one viewing. There is a failure of fatherhood/ a failure to protect confronted throughout Prisoners-by a Heavenly Father, the father of the two main characters, one of the main characters, a priest, the kidnapper. Hugh Jackman plays one of the father’s of the kidnapped children. He is a devout Christian hunter prepper who believes that he can be self-sufficient in any crisis until he actually faces one that rocks his entire family, confronts a crisis of face, a failure of masculinity and all his roles as father, husband and protector, but he is never ridiculed in Prisoners. He is treated with love, respect, sympathy and understanding. His friendship with his more genteel suburban black neighbors signals that he is no boor or stereotype, but a man whom we should not judge as some backwards extra from Deliverance. He knows that he has fallen short, but never stops petitioning for mercy as he confronts his failures. Jake Gyllenhaal is the policeman who is investigating the kidnapping. He has no love for priests or religion based on his orphan past, but he does have tattoos of a cross and the mannerisms of a repentant convict that shows there is some faith and devotion to excellence in the way that he executes his duties. There is so much more-the suggestion of a fallen, barren world, homage to The Vanishing, snakes, falling in a dark pit. Prisoners is a must see.