The Captive

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source: The Captive

"You claim you didn't see anything suspicious when you looked back to the truck." The Captive is the latest film directed by Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter) which happened to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival this year where it was booed by the audience. I'd definitely not boo this film considering I didn't think it was a complete disaster, but I didn't really like it either. My reactions are mixed. On the one hand it tries to stand out from other kidnapping films by incorporating a non-linear structure, but unfortunately it doesn't really help the narrative either. It doesn't seem to have the character depth nor suspense that other successful movies dealing with kidnappings have. It is rather unfortunate as well that it was released one year after the highly praised Prisoners which was a much better film. There are some suspenseful moments in The Captive, but it is hard to care for these characters considering they weren't developed at all. They all seem to be sort of emotionally disconnected and the captive girl never seemed to had suffered any side effects from her captivity at all. Despite all the misfires this film had there was a character that sort of managed to keep me interested, and I think it has to do in most part with Aaron Reynolds's solid performance. He plays the father of the kidnapped girl and he is the only one who seems believable in this world. While the film focused on him, it kept me engaged and interested, but as soon as the focus shifted to the other characters the story suffered. On the one hand you have the procedural part of the film that is incredibly annoying due to the poor job the detectives are doing on the case. The film failed to give the audience any plausible reason as to why these detectives were so intent on blaming the father for the kidnapping of the girl when he didn't actually do anything suspicious. Then on the other hand we get to see the kidnaper's relationship with the kidnapped girl which is completely unrealistic. So when the film departs from the Reynolds character (and it does so way too often) it completely looses its appeal. Mireille Enos plays the mother, but she doesn't add much to the film. When her initial reaction is to blame the father for the disappearance of the girl you kind of feel cheated because there is no rational explanation for these sort of behaviors. The entire reasoning behind this seemed to be to isolate the father and make us feel sympathetic towards him. There are some thrills in The Captive, but nothing really special to recommend.

This is a slow paced thriller about a girl who was kidnapped at the age of 9 and kept in captivity in a basement for 8 years. The story follows the implications of her kidnapping for her parents and the local police division that never stopped looking for her. The nature of the kidnapper and his motives is expressed right from the beginning, but you may miss some of them because of a somehow confusing time-line of events and narrative. Later everything will be presented even more clearly but numerous plot holes will annoy you and ruin the experience of the movie. The acting is sub-par and the cast far from suitable. Ryan Reynolds is like a fish out of the water and fails to find his place in the movie from the start. Kevin Durand is a caricature of a master villain and Scott Speedman (as one of the police detectives) acts more annoyingly than the kidnapper himself. Overall "The captive" fails to captivate the audience with a premise that in general it could produce an interesting movie about a delicate subject...

Sometimes your hunch can be completely off. Doesn't matter if you're a good cop otherwise. And this is just one of the sub-stories that are woven into the story. A story that is very close to reality, which makes this tough to watch. Ryan Reynolds is our driving force as his character (and his wife) cannot forget and forgive what happened to them. Who's fault is it though? Can it be on persons fault at all? The time-line hopping tries to keep the suspense up, which doesn't always succeed though. The performances are great and you always can relate to the people involved. It might get a bit too much towards the end (not sure everyone will like how this goes on towards the finale), but it's generally a decent thriller and a "good" watch

What the heck? Look...this movie simply needed to be edited better. A lot better. The gal who kidnaps the cop...is she into it? Or was she a brainwashed captive from his past? The details guy detective....we get introduced and then never see him again? What about the boss of the development company? He plays no relevant role in this movie? If he subscribed to the video of this private "ring" THEN I'd be impressed with the twist of it all. They took what could have been a pretty good 6.8 IMDb review movie and trashed it to a 5.8. Sure this has been done before...I loved the landscaping trees bit. Clever. Not sure why the rest of it wasn't.

I don't usually write reviews (and I watch a lot and read many reviews) but felt compelled to write one about this movie. I was just so surprised at how badly this movie was put together. The time frame jumps all over the place, from present day to back at the time of the abduction, then a few periods in between. To the point that it was quite confusing for the viewer to watch. There's nothing to really tell you which time line you're in when it jumps. When the abduction first happened, the police immediately suspect the father, which OK yes might happen in reality but to the point that it was done seemed really over the top. It didn't even look like the police treated it as a crime, no prints etc were taken from the car. The mother instantly hated and blamed the father for it happening. As if a simple act of popping into a store to get a pie for dessert was unheard of.. All these types of accusations against the father felt like they came out of no where, like the audience wasn't given enough information. Then all of a sudden they are talking to the abducted girl via web cam. Like, how did they even get to that point? Cut to when they finally get some evidence on the abductors, they trace a GPS signal from the phone planted by the father on the car, then cut to the next scene and the cops are all of a sudden at the house and a shot is fired and its all over?! Worst anti climax ever! Then with the cop still in the van, what ever happened to her?! We never find out. I hope this doesn't mean there is a sequel. So many things didn't add up or were confusing and disconnected. I felt like it was edited all wrong. Better luck next time perhaps. It started off promising but in the end failed.

Let me start by stating this isn't the greatest movie ever made - You've only got to look at some of the other reviews to see that. However... I actually really enjoyed it (maybe because I'm the father of a 10 year old girl, and so could perhaps relate easier, IDK??). Anyway, it really got me hooked from the beginning. Sorry all you haters but it deserves better than a 5/10 score. Many people moan about the confusing timeline. I honestly can't say I struggled with the story going back and forth. The actors appearances altered accordingly with age, hairstyles, etc... the story actually seemed fairly straight forward to follow without any difficulty. I can easily get muddled up in an awkward film if I lose interest - maybe that's what happened to all the negative critics on here??? Overall, an enjoyable movie (despite the disturbing story) that I'll undoubtedly recommend to family and friends.

Atom Egoyan dives into loss, cynicism, pedophilia, fear, love, loyalty, conspiracy, and technology. Anyone who's remotely dealt with the kind of situation involved will immediately recognize the ambiguity and confusion and immediacy of the past in the present that accompanies this particular trauma. The narrative shifts are telling an emotional story. The acting is spot on. Because it doesn't fit normal expectations of narrative, and because the characters are not typical characters, first level viewers may find it a challenge - or, may find it informing their appreciation of film. The more you abide with it, the more you appreciate it. It is not a procedural, though there are police; it is not a thriller, though there is some action; it is not a mystery, though it is mysterious. It is a rant against a world and system that enable very bad things, and a compassionate look at the people caught in it. It's Egoyan at his best. Worth watching and thinking on afterward.

Throughout the movie, I kept thinking..."something please happen". All of the pieces were there, good actors, good director, probably a script. And there were so many avenues they could have taken with it. Something with her ice skating friend, something with the mom, something with the cousin that got arrested. But everything about this movie was just so convenient that I wanted to puke. It starts out with the girl getting taken out of a vehicle and there's no tire tracks, no footprints, nothing for the police to use to corroborate the main character's story. So the main character becomes the police's main suspect instead of looking for anyone else (right). The kidnapper happens to have some work relation to the main detective who just so happened to be kidnapped when she was a girl (but they never really go into that). And the kidnapper is also able to hack into specific computer cameras and setup cameras so he and the kidnap victim can watch everyone (but how or why he does this isn't clear). And he also decides on a whim to let his kidnap victim see her dad after 8 years (potentially screwing up his whole kid molesting operation). The main character brings a truck load of trees to a job, when he's told to hang onto them until the next day and stay at a motel overnight, but the kidnapper just so happens to know where and when the main character is going to be, then steals the trees and uses them like bread crumbs to lead him to his kidnap victim (if it was me, I would have thought my trees were just stolen, not this guy though). When she sees her dad, the kidnap victim conveys in code to go check out her old ice skating partner, just as he does, some random lady that shows up late in the story just so happens to be conducting a bullshit interview with the kid after 8 years on a cellphone to show the kidnapper later (but his and her relationship aren't well defined either except for some hint that she may have also been a kidnap victim earlier in the movie). Then the main character just so happens to steal the phone that she was recording on causing him to be chased (but could have just as easily not done that and let the car drive back to the house where they were keeping his daughter). The entire movie is like this. Crazy unnecessary actions that just so happen to happen, who wrote this nonsense! Its supposed to be deep but just ends up shallow!