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 Prisoners  >  Reviews  >  HitFix  Kristopher Tapley’s
“Prisoners” Review Is a Tonally Confused Mess  In response to
Kristopher Tapley’s 607‑word review of Prisoners on HitFix  By
Marcus Julianus, Associate Critic  In “Telluride: Denise
Villeneueve’s ‘Prisoners’ is a bow of tension drawn impossibly
tight,” it’s not clear whether critic Kristopher Tapley thinks
the movie Prisoners is a masterpiece or a dud. His poor word
choice and and lack of tonal control bear the blame for this. At
one point, he writes that Prisoners is not a typical studio
movie because it is “bloated to a 158 minute run time” and
“glacially paced.” He then revisits this fact in the course of
the review and implies that it’s one of the film’s strengths. It
is very rare to encounter the word “bloated” used positively.
Try calling a friend or loved one bloated and see how that works
out.  This tonal confusion is evident elsewhere in the review,
too. He has much praise for the film’s cast