To provide a better life for his family in the country, 18-year-old Mateus accepts a job in a junkyard in São Paulo for his new boss, Luca. But when he and a few other boys become trapped in the dangerous world of human trafficking, Mateus will be forced to decide between working for the very man who imprisoned him or risk his and his family's future.... (Full plot summary below)
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To provide a better life for his family in the country, 18-year-old Mateus accepts a job in a junkyard in São Paulo for his new boss, Luca. But when he and a few other boys become trapped in the dangerous world of human trafficking, Mateus will be forced to decide between working for the very man who imprisoned him or risk his and his family's future.
Leave your thoughts about 7 Prisoners.
| TheWrapCarlos AguilarMoratto’s concise firecracker of a movie is straightforward in its soul-crushing blows and an essential piece of social-realist cinema for our times. |
| The New York TimesIsabelia HerreraRather than being a simple examination of a social problem, the film excels at excavating the deep-rooted, sprawling violence that affects everyone living under hierarchies of power. |
| Washington PostAlan Zilberman7 Prisoners is an angry film, but Moratto, crucially, reserves his most intense judgment for an inhumane system, not the characters who are trapped by it, each in different ways. |
| RogerEbert.comRoxana HadadiSurvival is easier said that done, and 7 Prisoners is a fraught thriller that wonders at the fragility of the human soul. |
| The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerThis could have been a thriller, but thrills are cheap and Moratto aims for something more documentative, sombre and meditative. It’s about paying debts and the illusionary concept of freedom. |
| Movie NationRoger Moore7 Prisoners gets us caught up in its moral quandary and the hard mathematics of survival, and is just long enough, with enough forks in the road Mateus faces, to put us in his shoes. |
| UproxxVince Mancini7 Prisoners refuses to cheat, almost to a fault. (It’s art, you’re allowed to cheat a little). That makes it slightly disappointing in the end, but not enough to undo what an adroit snapshot it is of the way exploitation thwarts organization and dulls its opposition. |
| The GuardianLeslie FelperinWith a Brechtian approach that compels the viewer to question both their own ethical assumptions and tacit complicity in a worldwide consumerist culture that exploits people all over the planet, 7 Prisoners is deeply uncomfortable but utterly compelling viewing. |
| Los Angeles TimesNoel MurrayWhile 7 Prisoners doesn’t pack many surprises, it is remarkably well drawn, featuring gripping performances and a vividly squalid setting. |
| The Hollywood ReporterLovia GyarkyeThrough a pointed script and propulsive storytelling, Moratto smartly makes the stakes of living within such a perverse system clear. |
