What a waste of my time!!!

That was an excellent one.

Just perfect...

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Secuestro Express is a great movie, no doubt about it, but why does Hollywood has to be so DUMB??... When you see the trailers you expect no more than a action movie...but for those who live in Venezuela ( as myself) there's nothing of action o fiction in this movie, what you see there is the sad but true life that we live here in Caracas, every day when you're walking down the street, when you're driving you're car, when you're at home, you're always thinking, am i going to be next? why is the police stealing people? why are those gangsters ( malandros) looking at me that way? YES here in VEnezuela having something is a crime, it doesn't matter if you worked for it, if you have something that others don't you're a possible victim of crime. TO not make it so much of a complain about Venezuela but about the way the film was turned, I would like to say, this movie may be "fiction"cause its was taken in an controlled environment, but what you see in that movie happens everyday, its not something COOL, or JUST "bang bang" its a reality for all those who live here, it would be great if people saw that and not just ohhh cool another action movie...

The film representation of the characteristics of poverty in Latin America, and of the phenomena it originates, has developed through the years, from the populist portraits of the 1930s and 1940s, in which being poor almost equaled sainthood (as in "Nosotros, los pobres"), to the movies of today called "porno-misery" by some critics. In the early 1950s Luis Buñuel's "Los olvidados" turned the tables, with its depiction of a disturbing high level of cruelty among the child and teenager delinquents of México City, and it paved the way for movies based on serious research. In this vein, the documentary "Tire dié" made by Fernando Birri and his students was a filmed survey of marginalization and misery in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina. Movies with a new approach were made, as "Romance del Anicento y la Francisca" in Argentina, "El chacal de Nahueltoro" in Chile, "Gamín" in Colombia, "Pixote" in Brazil, among others, as well as later works with aspirations for stronger sociological value, as "Sicario" from Venezuela or "La vendedora de rosas" in Colombia. These films painted a more precise picture of the social situation in Latin America, and of the underprivileged, without accusations or sermons. The release of "Cidade de Deus" marked the start of a curious phenomenon: although the film was based on a book that sustains the violent description of the story being told, most audiences and critics were dazzled by its technical virtuosity to describe violence, putting aside its social value. Since then we are having, from all fronts, movies that, using the consumerism ethics, and the aesthetics and rigor of a publicity spot, trivialize social inequity and misery, and glamorize crime. "Secuestro express" falls into this category. It is a Hollywood version of a frequent phenomenon - kidnapping. As almost all of the good or bad films dealing with poverty, there is no intention to point reasons: in these movies, you seldom hear of bad distribution of national wealth, hoarders, landowners or creole oligarchies that have sold their countries to transnationals. This is not the reason why I blame these movies, which have the right to make their own statement, but the accommodation of their own local situations to worn out formulas of traditional narratives, giving solutions to their dramas that, in the execution, resemble more foreign action movies, than Latin America realities. They even describe the characters as stereotypes of 1940s melodramas: these seldom react as they would in real life, but in a way that allows the creators to make "beautiful shots". For example, when the kidnapped woman (Mia Maestro) is released momentarily in a lonely place, far away from Caracas, instead of running for her life, she falls and cries in the dust, a strategy that permits the director and cinematographer to make a few nice shots of Maestro, and a chance to add a second ending to the story. The script follows a predictable direction (another example: of all the taxis in Caracas, the woman's runaway boyfriend boards the cab chauffeured by one of the kidnappers' accomplices), that unfortunately turns the movie into a catalog of common places. In the end, the authors divide the world in a 50% of hungry persons and 50% of well-bred folks. A little research would have revealed to them that, in the real world, the percentage of hungry people surpasses by a great margin the filmmakers' lack of information.

This movie is an excellent representation of the reality that Venezuelans are subjected to. Even though the violence is present at all times in the movie it is done in a very artistic and professional way, without recurring to unnecessary crudeness (the violence in itself is quite crude).When watching this, just keep in mind that this is the reality of people living in Venezuela. Everybody is a potential victim. More people have been killed by guns in Venezuela than in the Iraq war in the same period of time (and both countries have pretty much the same population).This movie was also very much disliked by the government, as it shows one of the many truths they want to censor.Finally if you understand Spanish you'll notice the big difference between the language that the "rich" and "poor" people speak (it is widely exaggerated, though, but a very nice touch indeed), so subtitles are highly recommended. I'm Venezuelan, and I needed the subtitles for some of the parts where the people from the "barrios" are speaking.

This movie is simply an offensive, unreal and exploitative movie made by a Cheap Tarantino rip off, who didn't hesitate to sell out his country culture to get a shameful pass to Hollywood..Jakubowikz is even lower than the characters depicted in his awful piece of cinematic dung.It portraits Caracas (and Latin America by rebound) as a horrible and inhospitable hellhole of drugs, constant street violence and utterly corrupt and extremely putrid Cops (and Military) , with nothing redeeming and not a trace of law and order at all.The stupid, unreal kidnappers depicted here justify their actions by pointing out that most of the country is starving, like it were an excuse to commit crime and behave sadistically."Gangsta" Robin Hoods, what an original idea !! Is full of cheap clichés and unreal characters: 1.- An unbelievable middle Class "Social Justice warrior" street lowlife with a "heart of gold" , associated with2.-The two little-better-than-animals, sadistic "ghetto-Gangsta" insufferable stereotypes.Dark skinned and extremely poor, of course. The darker a guy is, the worse.3.- The "poor little rich girl cliché" who volunteers at a public clinic and loves the "poor and the pauper" but also likes to party wildly, swallow tons of pills and several other drugs (a cross between Mother Theresa and Sid Vicious) AND, inexplicably, is deeply in love and ENGAGED with 4.- An incredibly shallow, insensitive, inhuman, unmoral, cocaine-loving, unlikable, twisted sociopath, stupid, antipathetic upper class boyfriend.There's some unreal situations: After a five year relationship and in a matter of few hours, Martin, the creepy Boyfriend:1.- Goes "out of the closet" and, in a hateful and Homophobic manner, he sodomizes (and enjoys it!!) a gay drug dealer who just saved his life (and who happens to be an old friend!!) in a middle of a death threatening situation, with his five-year-relationship fiancée left alone with the thugs, with both of their lives at stake.It takes a mindless, utterly twisted inhuman pervert in hard drugs to have that kind of behavior in a situation like this. 2.-After being caught in the middle of the despicable Homo act , The creepy boyfriend is RIDICULED by his own loving girlfriend, who joins the three thugs in the mocking and in a small drug party, like they were old, good friends!! Totally believable, Yeah, right 3.- After a five year loving relationship, He doesn't hesitate to cowardly abandon his fiancée in the hands of the thugs at the first opportunity he has to escape and without asking for any help.Not even Jeffrey Dahmer would do that.4.- There are thousands of taxis and Buses in Caracas, but He chose to escape precisely the one the thug's accomplice is driving. What a coincidence.5.- Absolutely all the Police force in Venezuela is utter corrupt, even worse than the criminals they pursue. And the military officers and soldiers are all gays. I wonder how Venezuela still exists.The "acting" of this cinematic excrement consists basically in:a) Point guns to a head. Every five seconds. b) Make rape and execution threats. Also every five seconds. c) insults, cheap drug and sex jokes and swearing. All over the movie. d) Beat and be beaten. 89% of the movie. e) Venezuelan alienated and low "Gangsta slang" e) And, mostly, an individual and extraordinary effort to be as unlikable and cliché as possible.There is also an embarrassing, pitiful and self humiliating Ruben Blades cameo. If he needed the money so bad, He would better off singing.This movie IS NOT a socio-political drama and , despite the film's pretensions to social relevance, there is nothing to be learned here and no pleasure to be had.It also doesn't offer nothing new to film-making, The style is a compendium of Tarantino-Rodriguez pulp rip offs and more-than-exploited post-production Timewarps and Freeze frames, all wrapped in a NOISY (not grainy, NOISY, video gives noise) Envelope. Nothing original.Just a very bad, derivative, sensationalistic, exploitative and utterly low piece of crap.Venezuelan people should be ashamed of themselves to glorify this stupid, alienated, offensive and unreal vision of his own country. I bet my life that most of them never have been robbed, don't live in Venezuela, never been in a Venezuelan ghetto or never have met poor people.They don't deserve to be Venezuelans. They don't deserve to be citizens of any country.Some guy wrote in one of the glorifying reviews that the absurd and sensationalistic Plot is "100% REAL". Maybe He'd like to hatefully sodomize a Gay guy while both his and her girlfriend's lives are at stake.Or maybe He already did it.This exploitation movie is Venezuelan (And Latin American) cinema, pride and dignity at his lowest.BTW, The miserable, sold-out, Tarantino cheap rip off Director IS A LIAR, He has NEVER been Kidnnaped, He LIED to gain Publicity and to Justify and to give "social relevance" and "reality" to his repugnant,vile and UNREAL excuse of a movie.When the movie debuted in Venezuela, He pointed that He had never been Kidnapped. He changed that story later, because of the limited and undeserved media hip.I'm sure that if He were been kidnapped, and the movie were really inspired on His adventure and faithful to the facts, the Homo episode would have been different, something like all the thugs sodomizing the male Hostage. And the latter enjoying it.Mia Maestro shows She can act, is really a shame she was part of this repulsive abomination.PLEASE, don't believe this atrocious movie, Venezuela is much more than that.Is not ONE out of ten, is ZERO out of ten. Less than ZERO.