Saturday 24 September 2011

Captivity

Home
Smell the Movies
Smell the TV

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Year:2007
Country of origin:USA / Russia
Director:Roland Joffé
Genre:Pseudo-psycho fluff
Starring:Elisha Cuthbert, Daniel Gillies
Rating:3/5
IMDB link:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374563/
Tagline:When You Think The Worst Has Happened....Think Worse
Favourite line:"Why do good things happen to bad people?"

Looking for a torture porn flick but seen all the Saw and Eli Roth movies?
Well, judging by the advertising, this should be right up your pipe.

The plot:
Elisha Cuthbert - she of Kim 'annoying as fuck' Bauer fame from 24 - is the star here, and plays to type.
She's a vacant celebrity, some sort of fashion model, and is abducted and held captive in a cellar. Next to her, in an adjacent cell, a particularly attractive man, Gary Dexter, played by Daniel Gillies.
Well, it transpires that they have both been abducted by a mysterious stranger who is filming them twenty four seven, who wanders into their cells and injects them with drugs, and who seems to chop a damn fine onion.
Who is this fella?
And what is he going to do with them?
And is it really appropriate to have sex with someone you've just met whilst being constantly filmed by a demonstrable pervert.
All these questions and more will be answered, if you can be bothered to sit through this.

Whilst stylistically this is modelling itself on the so called torture porn movies previously mentioned, this is neither as vicious nor as interesting as either the Saw or Hostel franchises.
Whilst it has to be said this is visually impressive, it is left wanting in the scripting department, and you never truly get a sense that you give one flying shit about either of the victims. Cuthbert in particular is pretty woeful, though maybe not as bad as she is in 24, and I really expected a little more, especially given Larry Cohen's (Q - The Winged Serpent, Phone Booth, It's Alive!) involvement on script duties.
Not gory/sadistic enough, not as clever as it thinks it is, and with too many annoyances, this is flawed, flawed, flawed.
All that being said, let me make it clear it is not in any way rubbish, just not quite what it seems cracked up to be.
Average at best, then.

No comments:

Post a Comment