Review #127: Captivity (2007)

Cast/Notable Credits:
Roland Joffe’ (Director): Super Mario Brothers (1993), The Scarlet Letter (1995)

Elisha Cuthbert (Jennifer): House of Wax

Daniel Gillies (Gary): Spider Man 2 (2004)

Pruitt Taylor Vince (Ben): JFK (1991), Natural Born Killers (1994), The Cell (2000), Trapped (2002), Identity (2003), Monster (2003), Constantine (2005)

Laz Alonso (Det. Di Santos): Leprechaun: Back 2 Da Hood (2003), Constantine, Jar Head (2005), Stomp the Yard (2007), Bunny Whipped (2007)

Trailer:


Plot:

A fashion model, Jennifer, is stalked an abducted by a fan. She is held captive in an underground bunker and is subjected to numerous acts of mental and physical torture. I found a simple formula as the movie went on: Jennifer is gassed, or knock out, and then finds herself strapped down to a table or chair when she comes to.

Jennifer is then put through some act of torture. The acts of “torture” weren’t really anything special. She was caused no physical harm; they were just dumb, pointless psychological acts. The worst thing Jennifer had to endure was drinking a milkshake of dead human parts. Really? They do more disgusting things on reality T.V. shows.

The film did this capture thing three or four times within the first half hour of the film. After the first time it was like, I knew nothing bad was going to happen to her. Boring! During her captivity, she finds out that she is not alone, but there is another captive (Gary) in the room next to her. Separated by a plexi-glass window, the two quickly become friends and lovers as they survive an evil game.

Villain:

There are two villains in this movie. They are both brothers who keep scrap books of their victims. They set up a simple set of rules and situations they put their prey through and then document it in a comic book style story in each scrap book. The two brothers share a hidden secret as one of them brutally stabbed their mother at a young age while the other watched and videotaped the murder.

Cast:

Elisha Cuthbert plays the lead female role of Jennifer. Cuthbert is drop dead gorgeous in my book. She’s the type of girl that you would want to bring home to momma many times…and get a high five from dad! With all that said, I couldn’t really buy her role in the film.

She did her best to survive this crap fest, but still her performance came up short. I also like to point out that Cuthbert is becoming Hollywood’s new Teri Hatcher (Pictured right). It seems like she’s always the damsel in distress in her films and shows.

Daniel Gillies (Pictured right) plays Gary (the other captive) and he’s pretty much just another dude. In my opinion, his acting sucked. He came across as too “over the top” in his emotional scenes.

SFX/Gore:

There weren’t too many deaths in the film as the body count came in at a mediocre six. As Jennifer was tested through each her torture ordeals, it was pretty clear that the film was more disgusting than it was creative. Throw out the excessive blood and occasional body parts and the film could have debuted on Lifetime’s New Movie Thursday. Yeah, that’s how scary and terrifying it was. It was that close to being a made for T.V. movie.

TNA:

Elisha Cuthbert in distress…yeah! No nudity…Boo! That’s it. Well any movie that features Elisha (Pictured below) is OKAY in my book. Just seeing her on the screen alone is almost the price of admission.

But really, torture-porn? Shouldn’t the second half of that phrase take place in the film? I may be speaking out loud or something, but I think there should be a little bit more here. I’m just saying. You would think…expect…a little bit more TNA out of a movie that fits in the torture-porn genre.

Concept:

I think this film summed up the genre’s tolerance and abundance of the torture-porn movies. It flopped BIG TIME at the box office. I mean TANKED! It made $2.6 million at the box office. The world has finally stood up and declared, “No more!” Unfortunately Hollywood keeps spitting them out, mainly in the ways of SAW.

Captivity really had some good ideas and concepts within the movie, but as a whole, it really blew. First of all, the repetitiveness of Jennifer getting knocked out and placed through another form of torture (which wasn’t even torture…or scary) got old quick. I knew that she was in no physical harm!

Secondly, there was no character development for Jennifer. Honestly I could have cared less about her character. If it wasn’t for the fact that she was played by Cuthbert, I wouldn’t of cared at all. The film didn’t establish any type of connection between the audience and her character. Ten minutes in the film she was captured and at that point all I knew was that she was some lonely stuck up model. Do you think I was cheering for her or the killer? Over the course of the film, I lost interest with the character of Jennifer. I didn’t care that she would live or not.

Thirdly, the movie was too damn predictable. For example, I knew that Jennifer wasn’t going to be harmed physically. Another thing…spoiler…it was kind of obvious that Gary wasn’t the “nice” guy he seemed to be. I’ll just leave it at that.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on July 13, 2007 and made $2.6 million at the Box Office
-Production of Lions Gate & After Dark Films
-There was advertising controversy in New York and Los Angeles (mainly sick billboards showing acts of torture) that After Dark Films did without the permission of Lions Gate (Or so they say)