Notizie

Chicago – The kidnapped industrialist is pretty sure that he heard the voice somewhere before. He’s just not sure where. Perhaps it was at a poker game. Perhaps it belonged to one of the faceless men that watched stealthily as he recklessly risked his fortune on the gambling table. Now the odds are clearly stacked against the industrialist, who hears the familiar voice coming from the masked face of his captor.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

That’s the enticing setup for “Rapt,” an abduction thriller that gets more interesting as it glides along, culminating in a final half hour that achieves an altogether different and more resonant darkness. Belgian filmmaker Lucas Belvaux loosely based his original screenplay on the 1978 abduction of Baron Édouard-Jean Empain, and anyone familiar with the baron’s story will more or less know the outcome of this tense yarn.

Read Matt Fagerholm’s full review of “Rapt” in our reviews section.

“Welcome to the empire of the buried-alive!” As young François (Grégoire Leprince Ringuet) goes into hiding during the Nazi occupation of Luxembourg, he leaves behind a world of fear and mistrust and enters something even worse. The French title of director Nicolas Steil’s debut The Undercover War (2009) is Réfractaire, which is perhaps a more accurate reflection of the fact that his film is all about resistance – both active and passive.

After panning over the exterior of the mine where much of the film is set, the camera closes in on the beaten and bloodied face of the prostrate François. The flashback that tells his story begins with his own description of the grim prospects for young Luxembourgian men in 1944, after their country was occupied by the Nazis. They could either endure forced conscription and become cannon fodder on the Russian Front, or go into hiding and wait for liberation – or death.