BERLIN REVIEW: 'Captive,' Brillante Mendoza's Awful
Kidnapping Movie, Makes the Case for a Dumber Version of Itself
BY ERIC KOHN
Indiewire
Indiewire
FEBRUARY 12, 2012 10:48
PM
 |
| Captive poster in Berlin International Film Festival |
A dramatization of the
2001 incident in which Muslim terrorist group Abu Sayyaf took numerous people
hostage from an island resort, the movie follows them through nearly a year of
hellacious wanderings through the Filipino jungle. At two hours, the best thing
that can be said about "Captive" is that it makes you feel the sheer
longevity that the hostages had to endure, but that's not enough to salvage
this mercilessly redundant thriller.
At first, Mendoza's typically intense
shaky-cam style holds promise; the initial rounding up of hostages and the
ensuing initiation by their captors maintains a basic level of intrigue.
Fiercely devoted to their cause, the gun-wielding outlaws interrogate their
affluent prisoners to get a handle on their wealth. On a rickety boat drifting
through the empty ocean, these exchanges create tension that quickly dissipates
once they make landfall. Then "Captive" settles into a rhythm of
running, shooting and shouting, with a few breaks for flimsy dialogue.
If you
choose to focus on Isabelle Huppert, a good movie hides somewhere in
"Captive." The French actress plays a Christian aid worker boldly
shouting down the kidnappers every step of the way; as usual, she's a fiery,
engrossing figure whose confrontational moments infuse the story with a tension
it otherwise sorely lacks. Mendoza can direct suspense with the best of them,
and his command of the medium is such that the early scenes of
"Captive" manage to generate palpable fear. But once it fails to
realize that potential, Mendoza heads down a road to nowhere.
The
bad movie that mainly defines the "Captive" experience is epitomized
by a CGI bird. This strangely colorful (and obviously artifical) being
manifests itself at a late moment in the film, after the trapped characters
have traipsed around the woodsy terrain for months on end, repeatedly bitching
to their kidnappers. The nonfiction backdrop and passing conversations about
the politics driving the situation imply that Mendoza wants to make something
deeper than a genre exercise, but neither Huppert nor various plot twists can
salvage "Captive."
The few intriguing developments -- a forced
marriage between a hostage and one of the kidnappers, the unlikely bond
Huppert's character forms with an adolescent kidnapper -- come and go like a
series of vignettes. When a journalist finds the kidnappers' camp and sits them
down for interviews, a prolonged series of first-person confessionals take over
as if "Captive" were suddenly an unfunny episode of "The
Office." That segment, like a few others, come across with the same
misguided superficiality of that CGI bird.
"Captive" lacks any
coherent emotional hook or worldly argument, despite taking on form and content
that attempts to command both. Instead, it only evokes the sheer frustration of
the situation and the ineptitude of various governments to resolve it.
Everything is black-and-white: The terrorists are angry, the hostages are
mortified. Ironically, "Captive" makes a good case for a movie that
could be this dumb on purpose: Only the occasional bursts of gunfire inject
life into the frame.
Criticwire grade: D+
HOW
WILL IT PLAY? The genre elements, limited star appeal of Huppert and
real-life basis may help "Captive" find a solid theatrical life (at
least more than Mendoza's previous films), but bad word-of-mouth will likely
bury its longterm prospects.
http://www.indiewire.com/article/berlin-review-captive-brillante-mendozas-awful-kidnapping-movie-makes-the-case-for-a-dumber-version-of-itself#
http://www.indiewire.com/article/berlin-review-captive-brillante-mendozas-awful-kidnapping-movie-makes-the-case-for-a-dumber-version-of-itself#
No comments:
Post a Comment