‘Prisoner’s Daughter’ Review: A Family Drama Tale as Old as Time

Several moments throughout the director Catherine Hardwicke’s newest movie “Prisoner’s Daughter” include glimmers of promise, every one regrettably smothered by a pedestrian script from Mark Bacci. Fresh from his epochal stint as Logan Roy on the sequence “Succession,” Brian Cox stars as Max, a former boxer and prison enforcer who has spent the final 12 years in jail. When Max receives a terminal most cancers prognosis, the warden provides him compassionate launch, offered he can reside along with his estranged daughter, Maxine (Kate Beckinsale) and her son, Ezra (Christopher Convery).

Maxine grudgingly accepts the association — below the situation that Max pays lease — given her dire monetary scenario. Between inconsistent work and little assist (if not outright sabotage) from Ezra’s unstable father, Tyler (The All-American Rejects frontman Tyson Ritter), Maxine struggles to afford Ezra’s epilepsy medicine. But inevitably she begins to restore her relationship with Max, who additionally turns into a faithful father determine to Ezra, a lot to Tyler’s chagrin.

Of course, we’ve seen this story many instances earlier than, and much better executed. Despite dedicated performances from its solid (significantly Cox, arguably miscast for all his finest efforts), the writing resists exploring what makes this story price telling. The script denies its characters depth past their circumstances — struggling single mom, repentant father — and thus, their relationship, too, stays hole and archetypal. More irritating nonetheless, the movie forgoes any critique of the jail system, in all its stifling paperwork; and what permits Max to outlive exterior of it — particularly as an older man who has spent so a few years incarcerated — goes largely unquestioned.

Prisoner’s Daughter
Rated R for language and a few violence. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In theaters.