O Cativeiro

In the former Yugoslavia, the French medical team formed by Carole (Zoé Félix), Samir (Arié Elmaleh) and Dr. Mathias (Eric Savin) is returning from Kosovo to Paris by truck. They find a road block and the soldier tells that the army had found mines on the road and is deactivating them; therefore they should wait three hours to follow their journey.

Dr. Mathias suggests Carole to drive through a secondary road and they get lost. They ask for direction in an isolated house and sooner a van intercepts their truck in a lonely road. They are abducted and arrested in dirty cells but fed. When Samir is removed from the cell, they find the true intention of the kidnappers.

I do not know how many movies similar to "Captifs" that I have recently seen. Only in Brazil, three different films have been released with the same Brazilian title in the last years ("Captivity" (2007); "Captifs" (2010); and "Open House" (2010)). I was discussing with a friend of mine about the lack of new ideas and screenplays in the cinema industry, reason why for so many remakes and films with the same storyline.

Back to "Captifs", despite the well-known storyline, the film has good acting, make-up and keeps the tension until the very last scene. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Cativeiro" ("The Captivity")

Albanians were convicted of kidnapping Serbs and taking organs. Then they create a movie where they portray the victim as the culprit. Classic hate speech.

This is not a movie, it's a propaganda film, released in the same moment when the international war crimes tribunal is arresting the leaders of the Albanian terrorist group which is responsible for human organs trafficking. The victims are the Serbs.

The fact that I have seen quite a few movies, not only with a similar story(line) as this one, does not help while watching it. The fact, that it tries to be earnest and thinks of itself as serious psycho-thriller add to the odd feeling that something has gone terribly wrong. It is neither as great as it thinks it is nor is it simple romp. It is somewhere in between.

It tries hard to please to groups of people. The people who like to have a heart and mind to those types of movies, but also the people who like the horror and terror in that situation. Unfortunately the characters are not fleshed out enough (no pun intended) for this to happen. A little bit more of a back-story would have been helpful. But then again this might have been bad for those who were just waiting for the "juicy" parts.

The matter that is being handled here, does deserve a better movie (imo). A shame that this movie does not handle it as it should

I found this movie to be mostly alright for the most part. The story have a creepy premise with a gang who kidnap people for their organs because this happened in real life and is a frightening thing to think about. It builds up really well with introducing the characters and them getting captured and discovering what the gang is planning to do on them. Unfortunately, the middle part of the movie is definitely the weakest part. It mostly just the characters are waiting for something to happen and them getting torment by the villains in a tame way. Also, these trapped type of movie is pretty predictable, knowing that they won't easily escape from the gang. But things do pick up when the main character manages to escape. That part of the movie is suspenseful with her trying to sneak past the villains and escape with some people. The climax itself is somewhat suspenseful, but due to the runtime, it has a pretty quick ending to it.