24 Stunden Angst

Love the beginning. The premise of the movie is set up beautifully, tightly, but a garbled ending with too many plot lines begun in the last third of the movie dooms the project. It dissipates interest when a director arbitrarily introduces motives that had not been foreshadowed. Competent actors in what is eventually a lifeless vehicle, despite the chase, collisions, smoke and noise.

The storyline of "Trapped" is broken down into three parts, which are set in three different locations (the house, the cabin in the woods, the hotel room). The first two work better, thanks to the smashing performances of Kevin Bacon and the perpetually underrated Charlize Theron, and the outstanding one by Pruitt Taylor Vince (I'm talking about the kind of performance that, in a higher-profile film, would surely have gotten him an Academy Award nomination). The third part is not as good, because Courtney Love is rather poor in her role and Stuart Townsend is too young and too bland for his. The film never succeeds at being anything more than a formulaic kidnapping thriller, but the director, Luis Mandoki, knows how to handle the formula and which buttons to push to keep it reasonably taut....until the overblown climax. (**1/2)

A trio of kidnappers pick the wrong couple to mess with. One of the kidnappers takes the kid, another, Courtney Love, stays with the dad, while the other, Kevin Bacon, watches the mom. Of course they tell the parents just to go along and it will all be over with in 24 hours. So of course, the mom, Charlize Theron, doesn't do what she's told, putting her daughter in more danger. Some of the scenes between the kidnappers and the parents are pretty good. This isn't a boring movie. So, things eventually go wrong and the kidnappers start changing their plans. And eventually, the dad, Stuart Townsend, gets Courtney Love to tell him where the kid is. She does because she believes her partner plans to kill the child any ways.

So, we get a few good chase scenes involving a plane and the interstate. My big complaint is the dad decides to land his plane on the road, not seeming to care how many people he might kill from causing car wrecks. Well, there are a bunch of wrecks, but apparently no one gets killed. But, that was just too out of character since he is supposed to be a doctor and all. The ending also fails any a way because it reverts to the old, the bad guy must be killed "multiple times" to actually die.

FINAL VERDICT: It is semi-entertaining. And Kevin Bacon does make a good bad guy. It's worth watching if you see it on cable some night.

This is the kind of story we have seen too many times.Even the "new" element -the victim needs medicines- has already been used.In "Verdict" (André Cayatte,1974),for instance, Sophia Loren abducted a judge's wife who was a diabetic .I felt sorry for Kevin Bacon ,a great great actor who is not always given the parts he deserves -as for instance in "mystic river"- All is finally too predictable and the film is handicapped by poor acting by Courtney Love (whose part is uninteresting anyway,it resembles those of Claire Trevor in films noirs).The best sequence remains for me the one when Bacon and Theron pretend they are lovers,the only really suspenseful moment.The doctor character is completely incredible:this frail young man suddenly doing aerobatics is too much !

Rating: *** out of ****

One of the more pleasant surprises of the year, Trapped stars Kevin Bacon as a clever kidnapper who gets more than he bargained for when he and his partners (Courtney Love and Pruit Taylor Vance) hold a rich couple's (Charlize Theron and Stuart Townsend) daughter for ransom. Director Luis Mandoki knows how to pile on the tension to this chilling premise, delivering genuine suspense and thrills every minute without losing momentum. The story even holds a few decent surprises that caught me slightly off-guard, if not necessarily shocked.

As well-tuned as the direction was, what impressed me the most were the performances. The central story focuses on Theron and Bacon, and both make for one of the more effective protagonist/antagonist duos in recent memory. Dakota Fanning also shines as the kidnapped daughter; this is one of the best performances from a child actor all year (the other is from Fanning herself in the miniseries Taken). Stuart Townsend and Courtney Love aren't as effective as Theron and Bacon, but come through with solid performances.

Trapped is still a very flawed movie, considering the script is hardly original and the subject matter itself is a little unsavory and disturbing. The tit-for-tat matches between kidnapper and hostage can get a little repetitive, but the fact that it revolves around three pairings does add more tension to the proceedings. Still, the movie nicely builds to its thrilling conclusion, a climactic sequence that is a bit overdone but nonetheless exciting. It's a pity Trapped was ignored at the box office, since it's easily far superior to recent similarly plotted kidnapped thrillers such as Don't Say a Word or Along Came a Spider.