Monday, August 22, 2011

Kidnapped (2010)

Kidnapped • Secuestrados (2010)
Kidnapped • Secuestrados (2010)

Genre: Horror • Thriller
Director: Miguel Ángel Vivas
Starring: Manuela Vellés, Dritan Biba, Ana Wagener, Fernando Cayo
Duration: 85 min.
Rating: 6.5

Summary:
Jaime, Marta and their daughter Isabel, a well-off family, move to a luxurious new house. The parents are going through a rough patch but have decided to give their relationship one last chance. On the first evening in their new home, a group of three hooded men burst into the house. Their objective: To get as much money as possible out of them in one night...

Kidnapped • Secuestrados (2010)


Kidnapped is a film from Spanish director Miguel Ángel Vivas and co written by Javier Garcia.  It premiered at the 2010 Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas.    Set in an upscale gated community home in Madrid, it tells the harrowing story of a family terrorized by a trio of home invaders. 

This is intense and unrelentingly brutal, but seems to fall into a predictable formula, following too closely in the footsteps of other recent home invasion horror films.  In its defense, this is a very technically inventive offering, the entire film is a string of maybe a dozen extremely long uninterrupted takes, and every once in awhile Vivas employs a split screen point of view to spruce up the action.  These long scenes are presented with a very realistic style making the film that much more disturbing and unsettling.  Adding to this is the lack of any musical score to remind you that this is just a movie.

What doesn't work is the unexplained red herring opening scene that seems like a pointless distracting addition; and the failure to establish a solid reason for the crime, it just doesn't make sense for anyone to plan and go through all that risk, just for a few thousand dollars.  Though it was refreshing to see that the main characters were not the typical picture perfect lovey dovey sweet and innocent family, and the overall acting was decent, but the endless sobbing by the teenage daughter Isa (Manuela Vellés) starts to get very annoying and any sympathy felt for her character is pretty much lost by the end.

Fans of films like Michael Haneke's Funny Games, or David Moreau and Xavier Palud's Them might enjoy this one, but if you've seen those films then you've basically seen this one too.

Bonjour Tristesse

Kidnapped • Secuestrados (2010)

Kidnapped • Secuestrados (2010)

Kidnapped • Secuestrados (2010)

Kidnapped • Secuestrados (2010)

Kidnapped • Secuestrados (2010)

Kidnapped • Secuestrados (2010)

Kidnapped • Secuestrados (2010)

Kidnapped • Secuestrados (2010)

13 comments:

The Angry Lurker said...

Thanks for that, I'll give it a miss.

blahblahblahtoby said...

i like that you've basically rolled your eyes and said meh to this one! :D it makes all the positive and enthusiastic reviews even better.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Thanks FilmMasterT

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Although it happens to be set in Spain, this one could just as easily have taken place in any other western country.

The Reel Foto said...

firewall!

FilmMasterT said...

the film sounds worth skipping. Very nice review, and great images!

Moviemonstrosityblog said...

mmmmmmeeeeeeehhhhhhhhh

Hoi-Ming Ng said...

Was not a fan of THEM. A gang of rambunctious teens terrorizing two full-grown adults? By the end I basically felt like those two DESERVED to get killed for such weakness.

Shutterbug said...

The premise of the movie sounds good, but I would be put off by all that sobbing too! 

d_4 said...

Normally with this kind of review I'd go "meh".. but since it's set in Spain, I want to see it. I'll put it on the bottom of the ever growing list, but I'm putting it there just because it's good enough and has that Spanish accent to it.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

I would probably have been impressed if I hadn't seen any home invasion movies before.  This one just uses the same ingredients as everyone else, without adding anything of its own to the mix.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

It's also probably a bit too violent for your tastes, one scene features a nasty homage to Irreversible.

FrontRoomCinema said...

Hmm Shame as it looks like it could've been right up my street too!! Ah well thank matey

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