Aug 15, 2003 02:57 AM
2155 Views
(Updated Aug 15, 2003 03:01 AM)
Trapped is a suspense thriller.
The following are the events which lead to the writing of this review:
Sunday: Aug 10 – first viewing of Trapped - 9.30 a.m. to 11.00 a.m.
Sunday: Aug 10 – second viewing of Trapped - 10.00 p.m. to 11.30 p.m.
Monday: Aug 11 – request to MS through Mouse Pad to include this film
Wednesday: Aug 13 - Topic approved by MS
Thursday: Aug 14 - Writing this review
It was released in Sept 2002 and has a running time of 1 hr 46 minutes. The director is Luis Mandoki.
The Plot:
The movie deals with child kidnappings and collecting the ransom. The kidnapping plan, which has been perfected over four kidnappings involves identifying wealthy parents and choosing the kidnapping time to coincide with when the parents are not together and then give a 24 hours window in order to collect the ransom. In all cases the child is safely returned back to the parents following 24 hrs of grief and trauma.
The Kidnappers consists of Joe Hickey (Kevin Bacon), his wife Cheryl (Courtney Love) and Marvin (Joe’s cousin).
The generic plot has Cheryl staying with the husband, Marvin takes the victim to a cabin in the woods and Joe remains with the wife demanding to have sex with her in exchange for her child’s life.
In Trapped, Joe plans to target the Jennings’ family. Will Jennings (Stuart Townsend) is a well known anesthesiologist and Karen (Charlize Theron) is an ex-nurse and now a homemaker. Karen helped Will pay through his med school. They have a beautiful home in Portland, Oregon and Will flies his own seaplane. Their daughter – Abby is the apple of their eye and we have a backdrop of an adorable family.
The story starts when Will is leaving in his seaplane to one of his conferences and Joe and Marvin break into Abby’s room and kidnap her. Marvin takes her to the pre-arranged cabin in the woods and Joe starts playing mind games with Karen. Meanwhile at the end of his lecture at the conference, Will is accosted by Cheryl who tells him about his daughters’ kidnapping.
The modus operandi for the kidnapping gang is to call each other at 30 minutes interval just to ensure that things are on plan – if no phone calls are received, Abby is to be killed.
But this kidnapping was not like any of the previous four kidnappings – Abby has a medical problem – she is asthmatic and requires her medication and a pump. A slight deviation to the plan is made and Joe drives Karen to meet Abby and Marvin in the middle of the woods and Karen is able to give the medications to Abby.
Karen starts preparing for the ransom amount of $250,000 and in the hotel room Will learns that there is more to the kidnapping than the ransom amount as Cheryl blames him for making them lose their daughter – Katie.
The rest of the movie is fast paced and depicts how the FBI gets involved and rescues Abby.
The Performances:
# Kevin Bacon as Joe was very authentic and he acts these kind of slimy characters with ease.
# Courtney Love as Cheryl, was all oomph and gives a reasonable performance.
# Charlize Theron as Karen, acted well in parts – especially when she had to counter every move of Joe
# Stuart Townsend as Will, was a total disappointment – he can hardly act.
# Marvin gave an OK performance.
# Dakota Fanning as Abby - the child was excellent as she was able to convincingly show her fears.
Overall I would give this movie a 3/5 and worth one viewing – more so for the tight script.
Happy viewing.
