9. Detective Loki - Prisoners
Focusing on the harrowing abduction of a small child, Prisoners takes a look at the darker side of humanity. It also gives Hugh Jackman an opportunity to shout and scream like a madman for the entire film. He plays the missing girl's father, Keller Dover, who is set on revenge against who he believes to be responsible. From here we are lead down the rabbit-hole and into the depths desperation will cause someone to reach. The other side to this gloomy coin is Detective Loki, who is tasked with the by the book solving of the case. Being that he is played by Jake Gyllenhaal, one would assume that the character would be entertaining or at least have something about him that is vaguely interesting. 'How ridiculous', said the writers of Prisoners and proceeded to make him a brooding, tattooed cliché of a troubled detective. The main issue with this characterisation is that he is meant to be the secondary main character yet there's no effort made to flesh him out. All of his dialogue is split between routine police questioning and trying to calm down Hugh Jackman's Wolverine fury which leaves no time to look into Loki's motivations as a character. This leaves us with Keller getting all the stellar dramatic moments while Loki's appearance on screen only serves to remind us that a police investigation is ongoing. He is exposition incarnate, sorely wasting Gyllenhaal's talents and also the chance to make the film truly great by having two truly interesting characters at odds.
