Taken in Broad Daylight

To have something so harrowing portrayed by such terrible acting is a crime.

I watched this to find out how a human being over comes such a situation but instead I watched actors and actresses fight with a maimed script which was followed by terrible acting. Don't watch this film you will regret it.

The best performance came from the lead girl.

The rest of the cast including vanderbeak were crying awful.

How this makes the family feel I have no idea to have this straight to video rubbish appear on TV representing you.

Anne Sluti (Sara Canning) is a 17 year old girl in Nebraska who gets kidnapped by a crazy Tony Zappa (James Van Der Beek). LeVar Burton plays police detective Mike Timbrook.

It's a slow moving Lifetime movie. The kidnapping is compelling but the story just drags along for far too long. There isn't enough depth in the story. James Van Der Beek isn't menacing enough. He just doesn't act crazy well. Maybe the investigation shouldn't be half the movie. Maybe if this was a tough character study of Zappa. Maybe it should be just a two person play. Maybe if the production value was more than the standard TV movie.

The acting is quite superb, when it comes to the two main characters ... unfortunately, the movie will most likely hinder James Van Der Beek's career ... much like Sleepers and Hallow Man marred Kevin Bacon's career. The public glorifies its heroes, but once that hero joins the dark side ... the public moves on, in search of a new hero. Actors need to be a lot more careful in the roles they choose, because the remainder of their careers depend on the choices they make! There are far too many victims in America ... portray a predator in one of these type movies and you lose a whole slew of fans ... specially if you portray more than one! Believe this, playing Ted Bundy did nothing positive for Mark Harmon's career.

Both leads are extremely powerful as portrayed by Sarah Canning & James Van Der Beek ... I was very surprised to find that LeVar Burton, from Star Trek NG, played the part of Mike Timbrook. LeVar looked so different, I did not recognize him ... but his acting was spot on!

This film is a lower budget endeavor and that's obvious from the start, therefore I wasn't really expecting to be excited or enticed to say it was a fantastical experience. I wasn't even going to leave a review but seeing that the only people who got on here to bother doing so were the whiny people who demand that everything be a Hollywood blockbuster, it seemed appropriate. It's obvious that van der Beek and Burton thought it was an important enough story to lend their well-known names to.

Because of this film, a lot of people were armed with information about what to do in a similar situation. I thought the acting was fine and in particular I thought van der Beek was a good choice to show that monsters don't necessarily look like monsters. This film isn't going to knock your socks off in the entertainment sense, but it is a harrowing account of what a teenage girl went through and, more importantly, lived through.

It's easy to criticize if you're coming from a place that expects a film to be written and directed as fiction, but critiquing what was said or done by the characters of a biographical drama seems a bit nonsensical.

My surprise was in seeing how Anne was so dominating and arrogant in the face of such a threat. But I can definitely understand that it takes a strong person to be that brave and that intelligent in such a situation. That's not to say that those who didn't survive a similar situation we're not brave or intelligent.

Sure there's things to criticize here because of the low budget and the short runtime. In particular I didn't like the song in the beginning of the film and I sarcastically thought to myself, well the kidnapping ended that torture. But the actors all did an acceptable job of reenacting a real life drama.

If this film doesn't make you feel emotional about the victims of people who kidnapp and abuse our young people, then you might want to go see the wizard about a heart.

A lot of the reviews are moderately negative. I would have to agree to some extent with them. eg - it may be a run of the mill kidnap film. But for me James van der beek made this film very watchable indeed. I've grown up in the generation of Dawson's creek, so that was all i've really seen him in. Except from another good turn in The Rules Of Attraction. His performance in this was outstanding. What i consider a fairly realistic interpretation of a sociopath/kidnapper. But how do i know whats realistic for that character? LOL. Give this film a watch, it may have been done before, but van der beek makes the difference between bad and good in my opinion. 8/10.