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Review #482 of 365
Movie Review of Captivity (2007) [R] 85 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $10.75
Where Viewed: Harkins Ciné Capri at Northfield 18, Denver, CO
When 1st Seen: 14 July 2007
Time: 7:55 pm
Film's Official Website • Film's Trailer
DVD Release Date: 30 October 2007
Directed by: Roland Joffé (Goodbye Lover)
Screenplay by: Larry Cohen (Phone Booth) • Joseph Tura (debut) based on the story by Larry Cohen
Featured Cast (Where You Might Remember Him/Her From):
Elisha Cuthbert (The Quiet) • Daniel Gillies ("Into the West" ) • Pruitt Taylor Vince ("Deadwood") • Michael Harney ("Lincoln Heights") • Laz Alonso (Stomp the Yard) • Chrysta Olson (debut) • Carl Paoli (Soul Survivors) • Trent Broin (Buddy's Big Break)
Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word or less review of this film]
Click here for the spoiler.
For all the controversy surrounding the film Captivity, including the billboard snafu--a MPAA unapproved billboard for the film was put up in Los Angeles amid much disdain and panic—and it's needlessly gruesome first 30 minutes, the film, I'm not going to lie, is vastly better than most people with any common sense would probably expect. Theoretically, the director, Academy Award®-nominated Roland Joffé and the screenwriter of the tense drama, The Phone Booth (about a guy trapped in a phone booth in mid-town Manhattan with a rifle pointed at him from some high rise psycho), should be able to put together a decent film. Probably the biggest problems is that the marketing people got it in their mind that this was a film about a woman being tortured in a cage, and most higher-order thinking people today find the thought of that despicable and pointless.
"… vastly better than most people with any common sense would probably consider."
Were I the king of a Hollywood Studio today, the very first thing I'd do is get rid of the marketing department. These people are supposed to help your film succeed, not hinder it, and they seem to be woefully unaware of how to put the right spin on films these days and / or what kinds of films people want in the first place. In any case, it's not clear that anyone really wants a film like Captivity nor Phone Booth for that matter. What has long been true, though, is that many audiences do enjoy a tense psychological thriller. At its core, that's really what Captivity is. It's not about a woman in a cage. She is tortured but psychologically more than physically—basically the same theme of Phone Booth. Read the spoiler for more on that. In this case, instead of Colin Farrell in a Phone Booth, we have super model Jennifer (Elisha Cuthbert) who is elaborately abducted and locked up in a cleverly decorated, underground studio apartment. The abductor has taken great pains, actually, to keep in her in a style to which she has grown accustomed. The décor is somewhat more of a modern industrial motif than she probably would have picked out herself, but it's not a 2' x 4' cage. It's not even a prison cell. It's a nice enough room. She wakes up to what looks like a lovely view of a tropical beach out her window that, when she gets up to look out, zaps out of existence to the sound of an LCD projector whirring off. With that simple gesture, the game begins. What ensues will be a mastermind of horrors through which she will be put. The first few are truly gruesome and despicable, nothing less than straight from the mind of Eli Roth's Hostel. Captivity, however, achieves something that the supposed wunderkind, Roth, never achieves. First, Captivity has several brilliant twists that there's no way to anticipate that step up the game on this one. This is not just Saw and nowhere near to Hostel or Texas Chainsaw where idiot people are being hunted and killed and chopped up in ever-increasingly nasty ways—apologies to the Saw franchise which actually does have slightly more of a point than these other two). In any case, the twists here are inspired. Second, it's not going to give too much away to say that Jennifer isn't going to just take this crap lying down. She's vastly more intelligent than her captor, who has digested every talk show interview, magazine article, and tabloid headline ever featuring the super model, has estimated. Sure, she has a strong will to live, but she also has a resolution to not be anyone's playmate. These two things together make for a far more interesting film that elevates it out of the grisly, bloody, murderous rampage (GBMR) genre of which some of the aforementioned films fit quite squarely. In a nutshell, the plot is more interesting and engaging than the marketing campaign designed to play on the sick obsession of fans also of the aforementioned genre would lead one to believe. The interesting thing is, though, that with some editing and some better choices, the kind that Alfred Hitchcock would have made—think about that Psycho shower scene, this film really had some promise of being closer to the brilliant psychological dramas than it ended up. It's too bad, and it's unclear why so many directors today, even amazing ones, are taking this route, and for Roland Joffé, he made three bad decisions.
Elisha Cuthbert Buy From Art.com
Elisha Cuthbert, fresh off her less than well publicized role as a murderous teenage daughter in The Quiet, which must be seen on DVD as it's really quite a good film, was a somewhat risky choice as the lead and primary character. Unfortunately, she looks the part, but her overall experience and skills were not quite there. Literally, she's on the cusp of being able to elevate the film to a little higher art, as was true for all of the actors. Still, she gave an admirable performance and demonstrated herself as on the right path to shedding a pouty teen angst image for one where, with the right roles and hard work, she could arise a superstar. No film that has come out so far this year would benefit more from the trite but oft right expression "don't judge a book by its cover". In this case, don't pre-judge the film by its pre-marketing campaign. For the throngs who flock to see the Hostels of the world, Captivity, is a far, far, far better film demonstrating the potential for these writers and directors of GMBR films to make better movies with harder work and more effort.
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Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word review of this film]
Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word review of this film]
Other Projects Featuring Captivity (2007)
Cast Members
Elisha Cuthbert
• Daniel Gillies • Pruitt Taylor VinceMichael Harney
• Laz Alonso • Chrysta OlsonCarl Paoli
• Trent BroinDirector
Roland Joffé
Writers
Larry Cohen
• Joseph Tura| VHS | DVD | |
Elisha Cuthbert sheds her teen angst image to take the next step toward emerging a full-fledged movie star. Onthat road, there would need to be some bumps. In this case, the mis-marketed, Captivity, directed by Roland Joffé from a script by the Phone Booth guy. She portrays a supermodel, abducted to fill the role of a malevolent serial killer who derives his joys by playing mind games with women he hold captive before killing them. Unfortunately, the captor vastly underestimates his prize this time, and ends up getting far more than he bargained for. "Don't judge a book by its cover", this film is far, far better than common sense would predict with brilliant psychological twists. Unfortunately, some gruesome choices and not the strongest casting possible, prevent Captivity from reaching its full potential.
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