Thanks to Liam Neeson, whenever I now see a movie in which a man’s daughter is kidnapped, I immediately expect him to develop a gruff Irish brogue and a particular set of skills. But as can be seen in this first trailer for The Captive, there’s more to that dreadful situation than just depopulating Eastern Europe one Adidas tracksuit wearing scumbag at a time.
Ryan Reynolds ditches his usually goofy persona to instead show us a much darker and more dramatic side, not as some gun toting superdad but rather as just an ordinary person experiencing a parent’s worst nightmare. A nightmare that appears to even be more insidious that how it initially appears.
The film is wrriten and directed by the Oscar nominated Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter,Devil’s Knot, Chloe), and while his last few films have not been completely successfully, he seems to be returning to form with this serpentine, high tension drama.
In “The Captive”, a pick-up truck pulls off the highway at a diner. Confident that his young daughter is safe in the back seat and promising to return with ice cream, a father slips out of his truck and into the diner. When he returns, she is gone.
This psychological thriller examines how this kidnapping destroys the relationships among those involved. As the film teases out the complex threads weaving together the victim, her family, the predators and the investigators, the mystery of what happened to the child is revealed. “The Captive” is a riveting thriller about the lengths people go to protect the people they love.
The Captive also stars Scott Speedman, Rosario Dawson, Mireille Enos, Kevin Durand and Bruce Greenwood. The film does not have a release date yet.
Last Updated: July 14, 2014
