Who payed the critics

A Brilliant Conflict

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

I recently decided to burn my way through all the remaining Larry Cohen films I never saw (Cellular was more fun than I was expecting), and finally landed on this one. And holy crap, it's directed by the director of The Killing Fields!? I should've checked this out years ago.Well, through the whole first hour, I kept saying to myself, there's no way Cohen wrote this. It's such a disaster, with ridiculous character motivations and plot points. But admittedly, some of his touch was there... Cutting to the characters of the cops investigating the case from our lead characters who are stuck in it feels a lot like his last couple films, Cellular and Phone Booth. And when you finally get to the plot twists for the third act - don't worry, I won't spoil them - it finally starts to feel genuinely clever and interesting. And like a Larry Cohen film.But you've got to be prepared to slog through the first hour. I guess this is meant to be a Saw-inspired film, where the trap-like room Elisha Cuthbert is stuck in is super high-tech and practically omnipotent. Everything is so contrived and utterly unconvincing; and the lead character (how she's written... not really Cuthbert's fault) is utterly unlikable and uninteresting. The whole first two acts are like an hour long slog you have to sit through to get to the end. And no, it won't make sense or pay off if you just skip to the last thirty minutes.But don't let me oversell the final act. It doesn't suddenly turn into Shakespeare; it's no must-see hidden gem. But that point's when it turns into a genuinely entertaining, engaging little film. You suddenly care about what happens to the characters, which is a surprising shift from what you've been experience so far. It's still pretty silly, but by comparison, it's great.If that doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement, it's not. I'd advise most people who find their way to this review to skip over this film and never look back. But for the curious, if you're a fan of one or more of the filmmakers involved like me, then there's enough here to not feel like you've wasted your time watching it. And that's more than I can say for a lot of movies.

Awakening in a strange room, a glamorous supermodel and another prisoner learn they have been abducted by a crazed madman intent on torturing them in various brutal traps and must find a way out of their predicament to survive the encounter together.While there's some good stuff to this one, the fact that there's a lot more flaws really makes this one quite low. One of the biggest ones is that there's really no rationale offered for why anything goes on in here. It's supposed to go without saying that the cause is due to feeling incredibly attracted to her, but that still doesn't explain certain motivations present. The blank, expressionless and completely unknown killer here doesn't strike any kind of fear about himself physically, which is why offering a sort of explanation would've gone a long-way towards what the purpose of doing this would've been. One of the biggest culprits is the ending, which is where it's supposed to all come together, yet instead it just doesn't hold any impact at all. It glosses over the answer and doesn't provide any real truth to the matter, and instead it just makes the whole film feel incredibly confused due to not giving anything of any real definitive clarity, especially with why he held both of them together. Another problem in the film is the fact that there's way too much time spent on making sure the characters are drugged, which gets old after a while. It doesn't make for very engaging viewing knowing that, immediately afterward, she's going to be drugged out to ensure that the cycle continues. Rather, do it rarely or make it a mystery as to what's occurring to her, as she keeps blanking out but is unsure of why, building up mystery to what's happening there rather than spell it out from the very beginning and not offering any chance of doing so otherwise. The last flaw to this one is the fact that, through the majority of the film, hardly anything really interesting happens. Sure, the tortures are fine and graphic, but it just runs through the motions without anything there to make them standout nor does anything interesting with the shots of her candid interviews, and it suffers for that. Along with some lame tortures and the unthreatening killer, these here are the film's problems. There was a few things about this one that actually worked. One of the biggest is that there's a really spectacular setting in here where all the action takes place, with the different amount of really dangerous-looking devices strung up throughout the walls, the dirty, grimy feel with all the dried blood and damp-looking surroundings. This effectively gives off the feeling of being a rather creepy-looking setting and appropriate for a series of crazy tortures to happen. There's a really good one inside an hourglass that is incredibly suspenseful, a falling acid trap and the different encounters down in the basement are quite nice, as is a full-on extended chase at the end that is incredibly fun and makes for a lot of good stuff. From the different entanglements through the house to the fun finale down in the basement and even the bloodshed, this scene has a lot to like going for it and it's the best thing about the film. These here are what hold this up but the flaws are just too much for this one.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Brief Nudity, animal violence and a shadowy Sex Scene

A film with a very small cast that has a very claustrophobic feel to much of the action. I have seen it described as just another 'torture porn' movie, but I felt it had a little more depth to it than that. The trouble is, it tries to be a little too clever and as a result I found it ended up being a little bit too predictable. The filmmakers also failed to allow the audience to connect with the victim and as a result they cannot really sympathise with her situation. It's a shame because I quite liked Elisha Cuthbert's performance. Over all though, a little too predictable and without enough guile to hold the audience.SteelMonster's verdict: NOT RECOMMENDEDMy score: 4.7/10You can find an expanded version of this review on my blog: Thoughts of a SteelMonster.

Saw meets Hostel in this entertaining, but painfully predictable film. Elisha Cuthbert is the difference between Captivity and the dozens of lame horror movies produced every year. Don't get me wrong, Captivity is full of gore and has a ridiculously stupid storyline, but it's not that bad, and Cuthbert is the reason. The veteran actress, best known as Kim Bauer and The Girl Next Door, is very methodical with every move she makes and that really manages to keep your attention. The maze of traps, moving walls, and pitfalls were also really cool, but outside of that and Cuthbert, Captivity is your typical gore fest, with zero character development, and a chilling story that really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I liked it for the little things, but overall, there's nothing special here, just another lame horror movie, that happened to land the right star.