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Trapped
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Trapped --
Ridiculous thriller in which child kidnapers Kevin Bacon and Courtney Love are thwarted by aggressive parents (Charlize Theron and Stuart Townsend) desperate to save their little girl, who is subject to life-threatening asthma attacks. As directed by Luis Mandoki, the narrative becomes increasingly ludicrous before its drawn-out, over-the-top finale. Some violence, frequent menace, a sexual situation, occasional profanity and much rough language. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops classification is A-III - - adults. (R) 2002
Full Review
"Trapped" (Columbia) is an apt description of how viewers might feel as this kidnapping thriller grows increasingly ridiculous. Perhaps that explains why the studio offered no critics' previews, realizing reviews would likely be scathing. Hopefully, word of mouth will be just as unappreciative.
You have to hand it to Kevin Bacon, though; he plays a sleaze with practiced ease. In this grotesque tale, his modus operandi is not only to snatch young children from wealthy parents, aided by wife Courtney Love and a servile cousin (Pruitt Taylor Vince). Between the time of kidnapping and securing ransom, Bacon, as Joe, isolates the frantic mother and has his way with her. If Mom resists he threatens to call his cousin and order the child killed. So far, Joe brags, he's had a 100 percent success rate: four kidnappings, safe returns and paid ransoms, and, as commanded, the parents never contacted the FBI, even after the fact, lest scary Joe return and finish off their precious youngster.
But Joe runs into complications when they grab little Abby (Dakota Fanning). He wasn't aware Abby has severe asthma and could have a life-threatening attack at any time. The cousin's got her hidden away in a cabin without medication while Joe is preparing for hanky-panky with pretty nurse mom, Karen (Charlize Theron), and Joe's wife, Cheryl, has a gun on Abby's out-of-town physician dad (Stuart Townsend), making sure he arranges to pay them a quarter-million dollars.
Little Abby's vulnerable condition emboldens both parents and each takes extreme, if not very credible, action. Instead of being raped, Mom turns the tables on Joe with a secret scalpel positioned at his most treasured body part. And the doctor dad disarms Cheryl and injects her with a paralyzing drug that will cause death in four minutes if she doesn't spill the beans about Abby's whereabouts. Not to be undone, the plucky 6-year-old has tricked her captor and fled into the woods with his cell phone.
Despite all this, the bad guys reassert control so the over-the-top finale can bring the three disparate groups together on a busy highway where drivers best steer clear of a small plane swooping dangerously low over the vehicles containing Joe and Mom, and the cousin and the kid.
The tension is slack in director Luis Mandoki's thriller because so little of the story seems plausible. That is not to say the visuals aren't darkly sleek or that the performances are awful (although Love's Veronica-Lake imitation with blonde locks obscuring half her face looks more silly than sexy). The cast is adequate and the pacing moves developments along, but Greg Iles' script, based on his novel "24 Hours," has so many about-faces as to who's in control that eventually none of it seems worth caring about.
Intended to add some extra resonance to the plot is the revelation that the kidnappers have a personal reason for targeting the doctor's daughter, but this is so weakly introduced and fed in increments to the audience that it has no emotional impact.
Rather, one is more likely to resent all the emotional manipulation on display that only leads up to a chaotic climax in this overbaked thriller.
Because of some violence, frequent menace, a sexual situation, occasional profanity and much rough language, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops classification is A-III -- adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R -- restricted.
Movies have been evaluated by the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishop's Office for Film and Broadcasting according to artistic
merit and moral suitability. The reviews include the USCCB rating,
the Motion Picture Association of America rating, and a brief
synopsis of the movie.
The classifications are as follows:
- A-I -- general patronage;
- A-II -- adults and adolescents;
- A-III -- adults;
- A-IV**
- L -- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. L replaces the previous classification, A-IV.
- O -- morally offensive.
** Discontinued classification. All archived movies that were originally in the A-IV category are now classified as L.
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