Die Cleveland - Entführung

In 2002, the single mother Michelle Knight (Taryn Manning) is walking to the court for the custody case of her five year-old son Joey, of whom she had lost custody. She realizes that she is late and accepts the ride from her acquaintance Ariel Castro (Raymond Cruz), who is the father of a schoolmate. He lures Michelle telling that his dog delivered several puppies and he would like to give one to her for Joey. Once inside his house, he imprisons her with chains in a dark room. For eleven years, Michelle is beaten and submitted to sexual abuse and abortion. In 2003 and 2004, Ariel also kidnaps and abuses of Amanda Berry (Samantha Droke), who has a child with him, and Gina DeJesus (Katie Sarife). In 2013, Amanda succeeds in escaping from the house and the police arrive and release the women.

"Cleveland Abduction" is a great TV movie that tells the cruel story of a monster and his victims. The direction and performances are impressive for a movie made for television. I still recall this notorious case in the Brazilian news and it is very sad to see how cruel a human being can be. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Sequestro em Cleveland" ("Cleveland Abduction")

I liked the film, exciting, tense, strong and also very sad. The actors do a great job!!

The struggle of the mother above all is impressive, so many years kidnapped! It left me with a bad taste in my mouth because it is based on real events.

It also left me with many doubts, .. I think there are opportunities to escape, specifically two! But I don't want to say much more. They even have a pen in the room, a potential weapon... but that's my doubt, I don't know what I would do if something like this happened to me. But the IF is there in my head, can't help it.

What hurt me the most is the fact that no one has done enough to save them, the passivity of the police is incredible!! Also from the neighbours, very painful to watch.

A must see if you like psychologically strong and tense movies.

Raymond Cruz is a most effective actor. For those who watched 'Breaking Bad', Tuco Salamanca is one of the all time great TV villains thanks to Raymond's convincing intense performance. Here he is pretty scary as Ariel Castro. The real Ariel Castro looked more benign than him. Raymond is a bit too scary to be the wolf in sheep's clothing that Ariel was.

The story shows things from mainly one victim's point of view. Might have been better to show things from all three victims points of view. There was enough time to show how each was kidnapped and the background of each briefly so it's strange they didn't. In this sense the story could have been better written. The TV movie does not make it that clear how one of them couldn't run out while Ariel Castro was sleeping or something for such a long time.

Overall watch this for a TV version of the terrible crime.

Should have been a series... maybe then it could have covered the rest of the girls. Other questions like how did they arrest him... how is it that they were not able to escape during all those years. The acting was good but the character building was a bit lacking and the full story unclear.

I'm always keen to learn about real-life crime stories and the Ariel Castro kidnappings particularly interested me. The 'Cleveland Abduction' TV film is certainly an interesting watch, though that is down almost entirely to the subject it is covering and not the actual merits of the film. At best, 'Cleveland Abduction' is a solid portrayal of kidnappings, but in reality it could have and probably should have been at lot better.

The film seems to cover the bare minimum of the story, covering all the main events but without going into any real detail and with very little character development. It all feels very half-hearted and even the events the film does cover are portrayed without any real conviction and are less than convincing.

'Cleveland Abduction' is a fascinating watch, but almost entirely because of the story. The film itself is average at best, covering the minimum but lacking in depth and conviction.