America’s lust for torture porn (think Saw, Hostel) re-emerges in this unnecessarily gruesome exploitation flick from Academy Award nominee director – yes you read that right – Roland Joffe.
Elisha “24” Cuthbert plays self obsessed model Jennifer, who wakes up one morning in an underground cell with no idea how she got there - sound familiar Saw fans?
After a couple of gruesome incidents (watch out for the eyeball smoothies), she discovers that she’s not alone in this subterranean hell hole and, by some outrageous stroke of luck, finds a handsome hunk (Gillies) locked up in the room next door.
After some preposterous love making the happy couple decide it’s time to hit the road... probably a good thing seeing as the psycho upstairs is just about to butcher them with meat cleaver.
They say:
BBC: "Captivity is a grubby, exploitative film with an extremely guessable twist and universally dull performances.”
Total Film: "Like Black Snake Moan, this is a film where poster campaign proves more provocative than content.”
We say:
When your consider that Joffe’s first two films (The Killing Fields, The Mission) garnered Best Director Oscar nominations, it is somewhat bizarre to find him - 20 years later - helming this trashy slice of horror porn.
Originally due for release a couple of months back, Captivity was pulled from the schedules after posters showing Cuthbert being abducted, tortured and killed drew a slew of complaints across Los Angeles and New York.
While they may have subsequently toned down the advertising material, there was no suggestion of them cutting down on the vile torture scenes in the movie and Captivity is just as nasty as any of the other recent entries in the genre.
Where it differs, however, is in the quality of the script (Larry Cohen, Phone Booth), which is embarrassingly dependent on ridiculous instances of happenchance and idiotic stupidity from its central characters.
As for Cuthbert, she looks fantastic but does little more than run around in the dark for 80 minutes, screaming and gasping much like she did in the first three series of 24. Misogynistic, clumsily edited and lazily plotted, everyone involved deserves locking up.
CAST
Elisha Cuthbert
Daniel Gillies
Pruitt Taylor Vince
DIRECTOR
Roland Joffe
TIME
84 mins
POSTED...
Sat 23 Jun 2007 at 11:57am
