The Captive - Scomparsa

It's an interesting film with many good character studies but so confusing because of its jumping all over the place timeline. Very difficult to keep track of what's going on.

I'm a big movie bro man guy. Before I delve into a movie I first look at the IMDb rating, read the summary, and then read the reviews. The summary of the movie interested me but I did not have high hopes given the 5/10 rating. Watching this film, I was actually very entertained. I was hanging on the edge of my seat with my eyes glued to the screen.

Right off the rip, the film lets you know what happens to the little girl and who the captor is. The entire movie is the parents working with what seems like the best pedophile detectives ever assembled looking for their daughter. The movie does this Pulp Fiction thing with the past and the present scenes flipping and flopping back and forth to tell the story. No where near Pulp Fiction level, but the film gets the job done telling the story with it.

Viewing this movie it seemed more like a 7 rather than a 5/10. Until the final 15 minutes... Once the climax has hit I like a film to build its ending to a fulfilling satisfying conclusion. Once the end had arrived everything was slammed at you instantly and "Voila!", movie done. I'm not even exaggerating either. There was no build up or suspense to it at all. I can't be remotely descriptive without completely spoiling it. Poor finish to what could have been a good 7.5 film. The potential was there, the delivery was strong but poor finish.

The acting performances were "good". Nothing award worthy or anything, but the cast did "good". Except for Ryan Reynolds. I mean he could have at least tried a little harder to actually look like a devastated father who just lost his only daughter not knowing if she is dead or alive. Instead he looked more like a father who just lost his daughter at a Chuck E. Cheese's for 2 hours who was actually hiding in the ball pit the whole time...

This movie has a good concept and the initial ground work is there. Problem is they jump from past to future without the viewer realizing it in many instances so it gets confusing trying to keep the story line straight (all they needed to do was add a year or something to the bottom corner of the screen). A few scenes do not make sense leading up to the finish of the movie as it is confusing if your are watching past or current events unfolding. Ryan Reynolds basically made this a decent movie with his acting skills, the rest of the cast are kind of annoying to watch. All said, what really made me positive I would never watch this again is that it just goes from being at a pinnacle point that they could have built up a huge amount of suspense and finished with a bang to a quick non suspenseful ending that just closed a few loose ends and ended the movie.

Naturally, I was intrigued by "The Captive", great plot and amazing actors, what could possibly go wrong? From the start, I could tell this movie was going to have a ton of flashbacks, which is fine, until those flashbacks kinda become irrelevant because the viewer has no idea which flashback comes first. Strike 1. The introduction of Scott Speedman was a treat, until he was a bit weird acting and since that was never explained, I guess that was just his character?.. Then the part where Ryan Reynolds character has an abusive past was brought up (in reference to plot), then was never to be heard of again. Strike 2. Still don't know much about the wife's character. Strike 3. No explanation about the relationship of the two detectives (Dawson & Speedman) but since Dawson seemed to have a picture of Speedman's niece in her office, it's to be assumed they're in a relationship. OK. And for the focus to be the family of the missing girl, I feel it rarely focused on them. Strike 4.

This movie just needed a lot of tweaking. Starting with some back story of the characters at the beginning. And less flashbacks. More explanations. And more focus on how the unit was actually working towards finding the missing child.

Let me start by stating this isn't the greatest movie ever made - You've only got to look at some of the other reviews to see that. However...

I actually really enjoyed it (maybe because I'm the father of a 10 year old girl, and so could perhaps relate easier, IDK??). Anyway, it really got me hooked from the beginning. Sorry all you haters but it deserves better than a 5/10 score.

Many people moan about the confusing timeline. I honestly can't say I struggled with the story going back and forth. The actors appearances altered accordingly with age, hairstyles, etc... the story actually seemed fairly straight forward to follow without any difficulty. I can easily get muddled up in an awkward film if I lose interest - maybe that's what happened to all the negative critics on here??? Overall, an enjoyable movie (despite the disturbing story) that I'll undoubtedly recommend to family and friends.