THE PRISONER (WB, 2009) D: Nick Hurran, w/ Ian McKellen, Jim Caviezel. Rating: NN DVD package: NN Rating: NN
A man wakes up in the desert and wanders into a strange little village in the middle of nowhere, only to discover that everybody has numbers, not names. Number Two, the overseer, wants something from him, and he can’t leave.
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The Prisoner tries hard to be an enigmatic, paranoid thriller in the manner of Patrick McGoohan’s classic 1967 series, but astute viewers will guess a big part of the mystery with the first shot of the sleeping woman and lose much interest in the last three of its six hours when the focus shifts to Number Two’s domestic drama.
On the other hand, it has Ian McKellen as the supremely manipulative, mind-controlling Number Two. He has a ball working the nuances in his emotions and keeping us guessing about when he’s lying. Jim Caviezel, as Six, can’t stand up to him. He’s good at anguish and confusion, but he’s hardly the “ultimate resister,” as Two calls him.
Most fun in the extras is the explaining-of doc, where various cast and crew clear up the mysteries and offer their interpretation of what it all means.
EXTRAS Producer and editor commentaries on select episodes, making-of doc, explaining-of doc, comics convention panel discussion, McKellen interview. Widescreen. English, French subtitles.
