Trapped

Year of release : 2002

Run time : 1h46m

Genre : Thriller / Crime

Cast : Charlize Theron, Kevin Bacon, Courtney Love, Dakota Fanning, Stuart Townsend, Pruitt Taylor Vince

The movie is based on Greg Iles’ novel “24 hours”, who also wrote the script.

The movie opens with Joe, seemingly keeping a woman hostage in his car, as they talk about her son. The woman is afraid he might k1ll her son, as they talk about ransom for his kidnapping. Before releasing her, he states he enjoyed their time together. The woman gets out of the car scared, looking for her son, which she finds on the playground.

Doctor Will Jennings seems to live a happy life with his wife and little daughter, as he leaves for a conference in Seattle.

Coming back home from driving him to the seaport, his wife, Karen, with their daughter, meet Joe and his cousin, Marvin. Joe deals with Karen, after his cousin kidnapped Abby.

Problem is, Abby has many health problems, among which asthma.

Karen runs into the bedroom, getting the gun, which she ends up giving to Joe, so he’d have something to threaten her with.

Joe tells her the kidnapping will only last 24 hours, if things go well, and she does everything he tells her, and pay 250.000 dollars in cash.

In Seattle, after the conference, her husband is approached by a blonde woman who was at the conference, under the pretext she wants to sleep with him, but he’s not interested. So she pulls the gun on him, so he’ll let her inside. She tells him her partner has his daughter and he has to do as they say.

Joe calls Marvin every hour, letting him know everything is fine. If he doesn’t, he knows something went wrong, and he has to k1ll the child!

Abby wakes up, and she is scared of the stranger in who’s house she’s in. Soon, she has an asthma attack (as Marvin put a dusty blanket on her), which Marvin “cures” with strong coffee, like Karen told him to do.

Considering Abby is sick, Joe arranges a meeting with him and Karen and Marvin and Abby, so she could give them the medicine Abby needs.

As time passes, it seems there’s more to these kidnappers for ransom than the usual ones, as they seem to have had a child who might have had the same problems Abby does. Maybe it’s not just about the money, maybe it’s a twisted revenge plot.

 

I personally enjoyed the movie, although I expected the leads to somehow turn the tables on the kidnappers. Speaking of the kidnappers, although a married couple, they seem to be in a sort of open marriage, as Joe has the habit of sleeping with the women he holds hostage (forcing himself on them threatening them with harm done to the kid), while his wife sleeps with the husbands, in this case, because Will wasn’t interested in her, she just gets naked in front of him, takes a bubble bath in front of him, and so on, like they’re married, the woman has no boundaries. This couple really seems to be a sick couple.

The movie suffers from the shaky camera syndrome which I hate.

The acting was good. If looks could k1ll, the stares Charlize gives Kevin Bacon would have obliterated him.

The soundtrack was good.

The visuals were good.

The movie received negative reviews from critics, with a 17% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 42 score on Metacritic. Cinema Score audiences were kinder, grading it a B-.

Trapped grossed only 13.4 million dollars at the box office, against a budget of 30 million dollars, being a flop.

You can watch the full movie for free, if you follow this link :

https://m.ok.ru/video/9652625738278

Rating : Worth a watch !