Trapped (2002)

As far as I know, Trapped changed its title from the title of the book it was based on, 24 Hours, for one reason alone. Columbia didn't want people to get it confused with such classy things like the movie The Hours and the TV show 24. So they gave it the general, overused title of Trapped, which says absolutely nothing about the plot or the situation they're in. Instead, you feel trapped because you desperately do not want to finish watching the movie but you're hoping for something good and hopefully a sex scene that would make this movie an R (it has `sexual content' in its MPAA rating). What we get is a horribly clichéd, basic plot with horribly clichéd, basic characters doing horribly clichéd, basic things.

All throughout the movie, there was a certain feel to it, almost like a direct-to-video fare, like Gale Force. It had a very cheesy feel to it; almost as if they didn't care about how it looked. Then, however, I saw in the beginning how much director Luis Mandoki (whose other efforts include Angel Eyes and Message in a Bottle) relied on doing what could be considered `trendy' filmmaking. The opening scene (which was utterly pointless) was filmed in some odd bluish tint that made everything hard to see. A gimmick that would have worked would have been to put it into real time. That would have been something rarely used in movies. The camera also seemed rather amateurish; at times, to show that it was one take (maybe to show how great these actors wereÂ…), the camera whipped from one actor to the next. And people thought The Blair Witch Project was nauseating.

Of course, where would stupid junk like this be without its stupid coincidences? The father (Stuart Townsend) drives an airplane (to a convention he can drive to, no less) once, and then, right when he needs one to escape, he finds one and flies it perfectly! If he's supposed to be a young father, how could he have gone through all of medical school, settled down and gotten married, AND gotten his pilot's license? It also forgot important plot points, such as one of the kidnappers needed to call another every half hour, although he didn't for what would be a few hours.

The actingÂ…well, I'll go one at a time. Charlize Theron seemed to think she was something special for her role, while anyone who could a) cry for an entire movie and b) be able to fit a scalpel into her derriere. Kevin Bacon must have needed a paycheck more than he needed one at the time of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, for he isn't really trying here. Courtney Love is really the only one that works, amazingly enough; even Dakota Fanning was off cue and just saying lines with her typical `I'm young, cute, and I cry in every movie!' shtick.

The only, and ONLY, redeeming value of Trapped is that occasionally it had some tense moments, but they were few and far between due to the lack of characterization. It's sad when we not only know more about the bad guys than the good guys but we're rooting for Bacon and Love. I was almost ready to jump up and yell to the TV (which looked like it had a lot cut off for a full-screen version of it) to just have Bacon murder Theron and then the movie be done with. However, I had to endure it, and it didn't get any better.

My rating: 3/10

Rated R for violence, language and sexual content.

Fmovies: Nowadays everyone talks about Charlize Theron. Her new movie "North Country" claims she'll be nominated for the Oscar next year, and who knows, maybe win it again. The thing is I've known her as an actress for a long time, and have watched most of her films; but after what "Monster" was, and after who she is now, I feel like going back and analyzing, if she's just having luck, or if she's always been a good actress.

With no intention of adulating her, I can declare she's always played interesting roles. Take "Mighty Joe Young", Disney's film, for example. She played the "heroine", an easy role, and I was a kid but she didn't look like the everyday heroine, she had managed to achieve a different approach. Next came joining Johnny Depp in the difficult acting journey that was "The Astronaut's wife", a movie that sucked in content but delivered in performances.

Besides being dimmed by stronger people that same year in "The Cider House Rules", 2000 was her strong year, where she left me breathless with her portrayals in "Men of honor" and "The legend of Bagger Bance"; and showed me her dark and betraying side in "The Yards" and "Reindeer Games" (with the great Gary Sinise). So in my quest of "rediscovery", I found "Trapped", one of her last movies before her Oscar-film.

The movie is very good, and so is her performance. The traumatized look she obtains in some occasions is horrifying. How her whole body moves, quietly and alert, because her character knows the danger she's in, but tries hard to be strong and intelligently fight what awaits her. Never has a woman looked so beautiful in underwear but at the same time so disgusting; because there's no pleasure in her position.

There's no pleasure at all in this movie. Karen's (Theron) daughter is kidnapped (data: she's played by Dakota Fanning two years before she was kidnapped again in "Man on Fire"; if she keeps getting kidnapped in movies she might disappear some day), and no secrets are held. We meet the man who planned the kidnapping, Joe (Kevin Bacon), his partners Marvin (Pruitt Taylor Vince in disturbing mode) and Cheryl (second-billed and unfitted Courtney Love) and their plans; including where they keep the kids, and how and when they take them back to their families.

The group has done the same kidnapping strategy four times, succeeding without being caught; Joe always makes boast of it. What the movie announces is that this time will not be perfect, because Karen is not like the other moms, her husband Will (Stuart Townsend looking as always) is not like the other dads, and more importantly, their daughter Abby is not like the other kids. After the group realizes about this miscalculation, writer Greg Iles' character development starts functioning.

I don't know if Iles ever lived it, but the environment seems so real. "How do you pick the families?", Karen asks Joe. "Well; they have to be rich, the children need to have a permitted age and the mother has to be beautiful". Eventually, Karen tries to find out why they do it, and as I said, there's no pleasure, because they don't have fun doing it.

During these scenes, a tense relationship between Karen and Joe emerges, and in terms of performance, they are nothing but moments to make clear the risky actor Kevin Bacon is, and the dedication he gives to his

It's unfortunate that Columbia/Sony is not pushing this movie -- there's some convincing acting here (Theron does the woman-in-jeopardy thing well; doesn't hurt that she's easy on the eyes too!) and three different storylines interwoven by the writer quite nicely. Some good setups and payoffs as well (though one involving the waggling of a plane's wings is kinda corny, but it worked). My only criticism is that some of the dialogue is predictable (the bad guys says exactly what we expect him to say in certain scenes). Courtney Love plays a white trash wench pretty well, but that's not surprising given her vagabond background.

BOTTOMLINE: If you like thrillers, go see this on a matinee -- worth seeing on the big screen for some beautiful cinematography of the Pacific Northwest and the climax. IMHO a big step above ALONG CAME A SPIDER and HIGH CRIMES. I haven't seen Mandoki's other flicks, but I plan to rent them now. I just hope Charlize Theron chooses some more challenging dramatic roles, or her career will probably suffer for it.

Trapped fmovies. Stupid criminals meet Wonder Woman and Steven Seagal, who are in disguised as a mild mannered interior designer and doctor, respectively. While the criminals have their daughter locked away in a cabin with orders to kill her if they don't call every 30 minutes, our hero wife and husband does everything in their power to get the poor little girl killed. This includes fighting the criminals at every single turn. I mean, geez, if your daughter was kidnapped, would you really be this DIFFICULT? The movie tries to throw a curveball with a superfluous subplot, supposedly to "explain" why the husband and wife are so combative to their daughter's detriment, but it reeks of stupid writing anyhow. Seeing how everyone has reacted, I was tempted to root for the sexual deviant played by Kevin Bacon. How bad is that?

If they had really wanted to live up to the title "Trapped", they should have locked the theater doors. If I couldn't have walked out of this mess, there would have been some actual excitement.

It started out all right, but I knew there was trouble ahead when I realized I was rooting for the kidnappers. If you want to see a family trying to rescue their kidnapped daughter, rent "Don't Say a Word".

The dialogue was a joke, almost the entire ensemble was miscast, the directing straight out of made-for-television. It should die a quick death at the theaters -- not even the American public is stupid enough to support this kind of crud. (Which puts me in the bottom 1%, I suppose, LOL, since I actually paid $8 for a ticket.)

The heaven, "One Hour Photo" was playing right next door and started 5 minutes after I walked out of Trapped. (If you want to see a masterwork of suspense, I highly recommend One Hour Photo instead.)

I hadn't even heard of this movie and was surprised to find not one or two but 5 great actors in this movie. And I can see why. This is a smart thriller about a kidnapping. This sort of starts off as a typical Hollywood blockbuster and it certainly ends like one but the story and the way it unfolds is very good.

This was a strong script with beautiful cinematography (again, in Vancouver), great acting. Theron proves here once more that she is a strong actress with much skill and much more potential. To boot, this has a really great action sequence near the end. A good, entertaining movie, this is a definite watch.

8/10