Slave

(2009) Slave THRILLER

If viewers saw "Taken" which was released 1 year before "Slave" then people don't really need to see this, since it's another one of those movies about human trafficking, except that this one is not an action picture. It centers on adult son, David (Sam Page) bringing his fiancé Georgie (Natassia Malthe) to visit his dad, Robert (Michael Maxwell) while on a vacation, who happens to own a mansion somewhere in Spain. And upon both of them going into a club after using the bathroom, his fiancé then goes missing. Then the movie stereotypes the police as they would only investigate by means of a bribe And of course, if you haven't figured it out by now, his dad has something to do with his missing fiancé. Okay, drama like thriller, but very boring with a convoluted ending.

The title of this movie would have you think it's some kind of bondage or S&M movie which it is not. The synopsis maybe it's an intense drama, it never gets too far in the characters. The promotional pics it could be a sexploitation or Cinemax late night but it has only very brief nudity. There's no laughs so not a comedy. With maybe two minutes of fighting or action it fails as an action move. It just never gives you enough of anything to make a movie.

They probably had little money in the budget. It looks like they had one single camera. Conversations were filmed sometimes with the two facing each other seen from their sides. Strange. The camera also often shakes being handheld. No Steadicam here. Even I have stabilizers for my camera. You might get seasick watching some scenes.

You really never care about the characters. Except the female lead maybe just a little. This could have been a short film as it takes an hour & 23 minutes to say what it could have in 20 minutes. It mostly follows the male lead searching for his fiance. As if in slow motion.

Plenty of better movies. Try another one.

Slave is a very morbidly vague movie, and that's what I loved about it, which made it very intriguing, but in the end it's really just a weak film. Some would say trashy film. Two honeymooners travel to Spain, where the father criminal of the groom resides. The first night while living it up in town, the girlfriend disappears. Now begins a frantic search which becomes an obsession to find her. The pacing of mystery here is excellent as we slowly learn she's the first to go missing. She has ended up on a boat, where an guy with a big scary looking beard runs a harem a girls, a sex slavery ring, all it as you will, where he gets em' drugged, and prepped for the clients, one of them we see, is disposed of cheaply. Like I said at the start, this film is morbid, be warned, but it's morbidly intriguing, but b grade fodder too. We do have some beautiful girls and a bit of bare bodied nudity, our lead actress quite gorgeous. Her POV as she weakens from her drugged stupor, as she's goes up deck and meets the other girls is sloppy. The criminal playboy too, proves a shocking revelation near the end of the film where too, the punishing end, on behalf of the boyfriend's fate kind of doesn't make sense, but if you look from the girlfriends point of view, it does. Purely this film is aimed at the undemanding, but too for some, it'll attract the crowd of a higher accepting audience.

There's a lot not to like about this movie. It is advertised as an exploitation movie, but it resembles the exploitation movies of the 1970's, just enough sex and violence to cover a two minute trailer. It also tries, but mostly fails to give the lead character much depth and realism.

That said, it does a couple of things nicely. We do care about the lead female character and we do feel fear and concern when she is "taken." (Did "Taken" copy the phrase from this movie which was two years earlier?) Also, we do feel a sense of despair for the plight of the lead male character, who is helpless, but not really stupid (until near the end). There is some originally in the plotting, For example, the villain is a psychopathic Russian Muslim convert who doesn't kill people during the Ramadam fasting month. Tell me where you have seen that before? The cinematography and editing are commercially slick. It is nicely done for an ultra-low budget movie like this.

One can't blame the filmmakers for disguising the film as an exploitation flick. A more honest description would be "an Albert Camus inspired existentialist meditation on the difficulty of holding onto love in the postmodern capitalist world." Probably, nobody would have seen it if they had advertised the film this way.

Even Though this film would not be classified as a horror movie, people who enjoyed the original video nasties of the 80's might enjoy this too. On one level I was thinking about the Texas chainsaw massacre and how the remake creates leatherface as an anti-hero. What seems to be lacking in many horror remakes is the ability to pick on, and demonize minority groups and a large dose of misogyny.

This film manages this. The idea of casting howard marks, is effective as exploitation cinema in the best possible way, it adds an authenticity to any criminal elements that many develop later in the film.

I can see a connection with this film and 'taken' but the dialogue is very poor. Saying that the pacing is good, the plot unfolds at exciting pace. it is not bad as a horror/thriller.