Captivity

Elisha Cuthbert.

Honestly, that’s the main reason my Viewing Companion (herein referred to as “VC”) and I first considered seeing Captivity. Ms. Cuthbert first came to my attention as Jack Bauer’s daughter on the television show “24”. If you didn’t watch “24” back then, you might know her from films like Old School (recently mentioned on this blog as “Movies You Should Have Seen By Now #3), The Girl Next Door, or House of Wax (a movie where much of the promotional tie-ins focused on Paris Hilton being in the film too).

Not wanting to base my reasons for seeing the movie totally on Ms. Cuthbert and wanting to have some idea what the movie was about, I read several reviews of the film. Reading reviews was a big mistake on my part. This movie contains several twists and turns, and many of the general reviews tried to describe the genre of this movie. Some reviews told me what “sub”-genre this movie fit into and what “sub”-genre it didn’t. Those “sub”-genre reviews killed some of the fun and unexpectedness for me.

Since I respect the readers of this blog, I’m not going to dive into a “sub”-genre description or even go much below the surface of genre description except to say that the movie is a thriller with elements of horror, suspense, torture, and romantic relations. I will mention that this movie seemed similar to Cuthbert’s House of Wax, mainly in terms of some similar plot dynamics (again I respect the reader too much to continue down this road).

Vague enough for you?

The basic plot summary is that Elisha Cuthbert’s character is a very famous cover girl or fashion model (near the beginning of the movie there are some interesting scenes of billboards and other media with Cuthbert’s image on them). Soon into the film, she attends a charity event. At the event she is drugged and abducted.

The rest of this relatively short film (about one and a half hours in total) examines the model’s relationship or interaction (if you can call it that) with her captor and others she encounters in the “dungeon” of sorts she is confined to. Aside from “verbal” interactions, and scenes of eerie shadows and light, there is some gore. I won’t say which characters “contribute” the gore, but it’s definitely not on the gore scale of a Saw or Hostel movie.

If you go in, as my VC and I did, expecting a fun and interesting movie that’s short and relatively to the point, then you’ll probably enjoy Captivity. Since the movie wasn’t some sort of revelation, we didn’t talk much about plot afterwards, and only briefly questioned whether we thought Cuthbert looked better with makeup or without :) . I'll mention that I thought there were some interesting cinematography aspects to the film involving shifts of the camera coupled with a nice play of dark and light or white and black.

There wasn’t too much in terms of plot that I hadn’t seen in other movies. At the most one could say that this movie was a unique combination of several thriller plot concepts. This particular combination of plot concepts might not have necessarily been seen in one film before but individual elements have definitely been seen in individual films previously. Of course, one element of that combination had to be a romantic component. Such components often seem out of place in movies such as this. The romantic component seems particularly out of place here, where prior to the romantic relationship the main character has been kidnapped, is unsure where she is, is trying to get out of wherever that is, and through recent interactions is unsure what the next minute or second might hold.

On the other hand, there were some things I was left desiring. Mainly, the dialogue and editing could have been better. Some of the dialogue seemed inauthentic in that the director was trying to get to the action and wanted as quick a dialogue segue (even if unrealistic) as possible. Editing could definitely have been tighter. For instance, my VC mentioned how several scenes seemed like they were filmed by an amateur. For example, in a particular scene one could see a “corpse” breathing. The breathing laid the groundwork for yet another potential twist in the story, but ended up being little more than poor acting/editing.

Overall, I’d recommend seeing this movie as long as you are not expecting a new level of filmmaking. If you go in with low expectations, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by Captivity. Go in with average expectations, and you’ll be satisfied. See it for Elisha Cuthbert and you’ll be just fine.


3 out of 5 tequila shots. You know what they say, “1 tequila, 2 tequila, 3 tequila, floor…” Anyway, it may have gotten that 4th shot if I hadn’t expected some of the twists and turns that those reviews generally described…