The Captive (2014)

Understanding the Darkness of the Captive

Director: Atom Egoyan

Writer: Atom Egoyan, David Fraser (Screenplay)

Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Scott Speedman, Rosario Dawson, Bruce Greenwood, Mireille Enos, Kevin Durand

 

Plot: Eight years after the disappearance of Cassandra, some disturbing incidents seem to indicate that she’s still alive. Police, parents and Cassandra herself, will try to unravel the mystery of her disappearance.

 

There may be spoilers the rest of the review

 

Verdict: Intenseless Thriller

 

Story: The Captive starts as we see the teenage Cassandra (Fast) locked in a room by her kidnapper Mika (Durand), she hasn’t left this room for 8 years. She gets to watch over her parent’s life in this twisted game Mika plays.

Flashback 8 years and we see the events leading up to this event of her disappearance as her father Matthew (Reynolds) is left feeling helpless as she is taken from the car, his wife Tina (Enos) blames him and the detectives Nicole (Dawson) and nearly appointed officers Jeffrey (Speedman) start looking into the case.

We then get to follow how Tina, Matthew, Nicole and Jeffrey have spent the next 8 years with the yearly arrival to meet and see if any clues have come up regarding her whereabouts, can the truth come out and the family know the truth or will they be left in the unknown forever.

 

Thoughts on The Captive

 

Characters/Performance – Matthew is the father of the missing girl, he searches on every journey making sure any young girl he sees is safely returned home while also checking they are not his long-lost daughter. Tina has continued to work with the police as they search for clues to what happened, all while trying to continue her own life. Nicole is the lead detective working on searching for children who are put in danger and trying to shut down paedophile rings. Jeffrey is the new detective to the case but has been working on it for the full amount of time as he goes overboard at times. Mika is the one that has Cassandra, we learn this in the opening sequences so not spoilers with this information, but he is the one involved if the bigger picture.

Performance wise, Ryan Reynolds is good in this role because you can believe him as the desperate father, Rosario Dawson also is good in her role as we see how both known for light-hearted roles performing very well. Speedman is fine through the film without being likable and Mireille Enos does control to show she can be a leading role in a film. it is Kevin Durand however that is the true star of the show, being creepy throughout.

Story – The story is told with a mix of flashbacks and current time events which can be very difficult to keep up on, it also doesn’t help that the film does follow a similar idea of parents and police officers searching for a missing child which is clearly much more intense in Prisoners. By jumping around all over the time line we are left just feeling lost following a story that should be intense from beginning to end.

Crime/Mystery – The crime story is something that is very dark which should be one of the more intense and shocking crime stories of recent times but the storytelling process loses that but we are kept wondering how big the mystery is behind everything going on.