Il gioco della follia

A young woman weeps. She is bound to a chair, and gagged. Wearing bright red nail polish, another woman taunts her attic hostage. Outside, birds fly free as we learn the events herein are "inspired by a true story." While the credits jump across the screen, teenage track runner Stefanie Scott (as Allie) takes a lap and receives some bad news from her coach. She's failing and will be dropped from the team. Even worse, she is kidnapped and becomes the hostage seen in the opening seconds. The perpetrators are a pair of overly perky sisters, wickedly sexy blonde Anna Camp (as Sabrina) and girlishly naive brunette Amelia Rose Blaire (as Paige). There is very little to this story that isn't revealed in the first 15 minutes, so it's probably best to say you figure out how the characters are connected by a handsome businessman, Sam Page (as Justin Price)...

"Caught" catches writer Marcy Holland and director Maggie Kiley restrained by a bad opening and introduction of characters. We see the victim already tied up, then meet a student and a pair of strange young women. It might have been better to omit the confusing opening "tease" and add some scenes to establish the characters' ages, relationships and infidelities; none of these are supposed to be a surprise. The story's most interesting dynamic is the interplay between the wildly different sisters; one seemingly psycho, the other intellectually challenged. What engages most is how Ms. Kiley and her crew divert our attention from the initial victim and to the bad sister. There is some cleverness and humor in how the victim and villain roles can be switched back and forth. With better pacing and presentation, this could have been a much better production.

***** Caught (11/7/2015) Maggie Kiley ~ Anna Camp, Stefanie Scott, Sam Page, Amelia Rose Blaire

Sociopaths abound in this nasty little story from Wifetime. Allie, a vulnerable teenager who is trying to help her single mother make ends meet by waiting tables after school. She meets Justin who takes advantage of her by starting an affair with her. He doesn't tell her he is married. Meanwhile, his insane wife Sabrina finds out about it and, with the help of younger sister Paige, kidnaps Allie to "teach her a lesson" as a prank. The prank, of course, soon gets out of hand.

As a mystery or soap opera, the movie is a tremendous failure. As a black comedy, it has a terrific, Coen brothers feel.

The adults are all either monsters or idiots. Allie's mom finds her teenage daughter making out with a man twenty years her senior in a supply closet, and thinks she's handled it by talking to her for five minutes. She doesn't think about calling the police. Only at the urging of a teenage boy does it occur to her to involve law enforcement in looking for her daughter. Unfortunately, the policeman she asks is as much of an idiot as she is.

Justin, the man who caused the mess, has the morals of a snake. He is obviously married to his wife for money. He is ready to dump Allie as soon as he realizes there are consequences, and abandons her to his wife, knowing she will kill her.

Paige, Sabrina's sister, is manipulated by her at every turn. She wants to do the right thing (as she's Allie) but is constantly used by her.

The star sociopath here is Sabrina, played by Anna Camp. She is every mean sorority girl, every snide man stealer and every desperate housewife in one character. She is the perfect, shrill, self-centered monster to be married to a worm like. Justin. Neither are very smart, but both are ruthless predators.

The fun of the movie isn't being scared or anxious. It is hate watching awful people engaged in an increasingly unbelievable comedy of errors, and hoping someone shows up to rescue the innocent victims.

I enjoyed it in spite of myself.

This was a surprising good Lifetime Movie.

The actors/actresses all did an excellent job.

The pace was good.

The story was told in a clear, concise manner.

There were plenty of surprises, twists and turns in this suspenseful plot, which I thought worked well.

The actress playing the beautiful, blonde villain was very convincing as a manipulative psychopath with tunnel vision that focused completely on herself and what she wanted. She was also highly intelligent and as they encountered one problem after another she would always come up with a solution even when they're were in so deep there was no way out.

Good acting plus cringe-level "can this day get any worse?!" sequences, so I gave "Caught" an above average score. TV movies have rating (not to mention budget) limitations that I factor in. I have to give it credit because it held ~80% of my ADHD attention span - sort of like a trainwreck would - but it held it nonetheless. That being said, if it was any longer I might not feel the same way. If you like black comedies this I would recommend this "graphite" (TV14/not quite black) comedy for you!

Good flick with flaws. As expected. Enjoyed the second half a lot, so if you stick with it you'll see some good acting and tension.