(EW.com) -- In movies like 1974's "Death Wish," where Charles Bronson played a walking statue of stoic wrath, vigilante justice is mean, nasty and also good, clean fun. But then there's the kind of movie, like Sam Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs," that salutes lone-wolf vengeance while also making you feel the spiritual toll it takes — a breed of thriller that's exciting, cathartic and powerfully disturbing. "Prisoners" is that kind of movie. It's rooted in 40 years of Hollywood revenge films, yet it also breaks audacious new ground. The film stars Hugh Jackman as Keller Dover, a brawny survivalist who is also a gentle-voiced suburban dad. On a rainy Thanksgiving afternoon, Keller brings his wife (Mario Bello) and kids over to the home of neighborhood friends (Terrence Howard and Viola Davis). The two families eat, drink and joke around, and nothing too remarkable happens — until everyone realizes that Keller's little daughter, Anna (Erin Gerasimovich), has left the house and disappeared, along with the other family's daughter, Joy (Kyla Drew Simmons).
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"Prisoners" stars Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal
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It's rooted in Hollywood revenge films but breaks new ground
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Thrilling and complex, the film earns an "A"
Hugh Jackman
Hugh Jackman
@placeholder, in a staggering performance that's unlike anything he has done before, acts with an unbridled rage, and he invests every snarl and rasp of that anger with meaning.
Keller Dover
Keller
Keller
@placeholder knows that in missing-child cases, each day the victim doesn't turn up radically increases the chances that she never will, and so his fury, even at its craziest, comes off as a desperate display of committed action.
Hugh Jackman
Hugh Jackman
Haunted by what might be happening to his daughter, he has — at least in his own mind — transcended the law, yet that leaves him with nothing to believe in but himself, and @placeholder takes us on every step of that brave, terrible journey.
Keller Dover
Keller
Keller
Watching the movie, we behold @placeholder's actions and feel that they may be horribly unjustified — a daring place for a film to put its hero — and we also behold his actions and feel that they may be what true morality demands.