Trapped
Cast
Charlize Theron .... Karen Jennings
Courtney Love .... Cheryl Hickey
Stuart Townsend .... William Jennings
Kevin Bacon .... Joe Hickey
Pruitt Taylor Vince .... Marvin
Directed by
Luis Mandoki
Rater # has description and review.
Rater #1
Has Not Seen Movie
Rater #2
3/10. As far as I know, Trapped changed its title from the title of the
book it was based on, 24 Hours, for one reason alone. Columbia didn't
want people to get it confused with such classy things like the movie
The Hours and the TV show 24. So they gave it the general, overused
title of Trapped, which says absolutely nothing about the plot or the
situation they're in. Instead, you feel trapped because you
desperately do not want to finish watching the movie but you're
hoping for something good and hopefully a sex scene that would make
this movie an R (it has "sexual content" in its MPAA rating). What we
get is a horribly clich�d, basic plot with horribly clich�d, basic
characters doing horribly clich�d, basic things.
All throughout the movie, there was a certain feel to it, almost like
a direct-to-video fare, like Gale Force. It had a very cheesy feel to
it; almost as if they didn't care about how it looked. Then, however,
I saw in the beginning how much director Luis Mandoki (whose other
efforts include Angel Eyes and Message in a Bottle) relied on doing
what could be considered "trendy" filmmaking. The opening scene
(which was utterly pointless) was filmed in some odd bluish tint that
made everything hard to see. A gimmick that would have worked would
have been to put it into real time. That would have been something
rarely used in movies. The camera also seemed rather amateurish; at
times, to show that it was one take (maybe to show how great these
actors were), the camera whipped from one actor to the next. And
people thought The Blair Witch Project was nauseating.
Of course, where would stupid junk like this be without its stupid
coincidences? The father (Stuart Townsend) drives an airplane (to a
convention he can drive to, no less) once, and then, right when he
needs one to escape, he finds one and flies it perfectly! If he's
supposed to be a young father, how could he have gone through all of
medical school, settled down and gotten married, AND gotten his
pilot's license? It also forgot important plot points, such as one of
the kidnappers needed to call another every half hour, although he
didn't for what would be a few hours.
The acting well, I'll go one at a time. Charlize Theron seemed to
think she was something special for her role, while anyone who could
a) cry for an entire movie and b) be able to fit a scalpel into her
derriere. Kevin Bacon must have needed a paycheck more than he needed
one at the time of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, for he isn't
really trying here. Courtney Love is really the only one that works,
amazingly enough; even Dakota Fanning was off cue and just saying
lines with her typical "I'm young, cute, and I cry in every movie!"
shtick.
The only, and ONLY, redeeming value of Trapped is that occasionally
it had some tense moments, but they were few and far between due to
the lack of characterization. It's sad when we not only know more
about the bad guys than the good guys but we're rooting for Bacon and
Love. I was almost ready to jump up and yell to the TV (which looked
like it had a lot cut off for a full-screen version of it) to just
have Bacon murder Theron and then the movie be done with. However, I
had to endure it, and it didn't get any better.
Rated R for violence, language and sexual content.
Running time: 106 minutes
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