The Captive- Movie Review

 

After a busy weekend (more on that tomorrow!), Aaron and I sat down to watch The Captive. From the trailer it looked really good, and I generally enjoy Ryan Reynolds movies (except for Green Lantern, but I don't think I am alone in that, right?).

The movie is about a family of three whose lives are torn apart when their daughter is abducted from her father's truck while he steps inside a pie shop for a few minutes. Seems like a simple plot, all they had to do was get her back. However, I found this movie to be very hard to follow. It jumped between the past, including several different time periods, and the present, without warning or indication- not even a change in appearance by any character over 6 years.

In one moment a detective is missing and the next she is talking to the victim's mom- obviously taking place in the past. That happened a lot and with no dates or a timeline, it made it hard to follow and probably lead me to not be as interested. I had to try much harder to keep up with this movie. I left the room one time to check on the kids, and some new character was arrested, in prison, talking the abductor only to never be seen or heard from again.

My biggest complaint is the lack of character development. After watching the movie, I still don't know anything about the abductor or why the daughter, in particular, was chosen. They were cameras watching her mom, why? What purpose did that serve? There were lines spoken that indicated much more to be going on, but never followed up on or shown later in the movie.

Six years after her abduction, there is a happy ending, but I feel it lacked the amount of emotion this story should have had. Yes, there were tears, but there was still so much missing. I could't identify with any of the characters because I hardly knew them. As an audience, we weren'tshown much about the conditions the daughter lived in, nor how she fit in to the picture, her purpose.  I wanted so much more from this movie, but found it very lacking.

This movie can seen on Amazon Prime Instant Video, if you are Prime member.