The Popkorn Junkie

"Trapped" has been on my must see list for a while. I first heard of the film when it was revealed that singer/songwriter Dave Matthews was going to star as one of the kidnappers. Later on down the road, I heard that Matthews had backed out of the role and was replaced, instead, with singer/songwriter/actor Kevin Bacon. That automatically made me anticipate the film more because I am one hell of a huge Kevin Bacon fan, excluding the worthless "Hollow Man" (which did, however, host some pretty decent special effects). Alas, when I heard Luis Mandoki was directing "Trapped", my anticipation shrank considerably. I mean--seriously--the guy directed "When A Man Loves A Woman" and "Message in A Bottle", and I don't even want to recapture the sheer awfulness of "Angel Eyes".

Kevin Bacon stars as kidnapper Joe Hickey who, along with wife Cheryl (Courtney Love), takes the child of a married couple (Stuart Townsend and Charlize Theron) for ransom. The kidnappers think their plan is perfect, until they discover the child (Dakota Fanning from "I Am Sam") they have kidnapped has asthma. Some interesting side notes are also discovered in the film concerning the kidnappers. Theron and Townsend are not very cooperative with the kidnappers either.

This is an interesting film. It is not a great film, and really never even borders on being great, but it is in no way a bad film either. This is your typical kidnapping caper, but with a really exceptional cast, most prominently Bacon and Love, who have wonderful chemistry on screen and really look to be enjoying their characters. Theron and Townsend are really supplemental characters, though they are key to the story. And, Dakota Fanning gives another 'cool' performance--not as 'cool' as "I Am Sam"--but 'cool' nevertheless.

One of the biggest problems I had with the film was that it was too similar to other films about kidnapping, i.e. "Ransom" and "Don't Say A Word". Everything that happened was predictable and everything that happened was clichéd, though they were made more watchable by the stellar cast. Alas, the cast was not enough to fill in the gaps provided by the sub-par screenplay from Greg Iles, who also penned the novel.

Some movies are just able to be avoided at theatres, and "Trapped" falls into that category. You can't wait until video and save a few bucks and still get the same impact as you would in a theatre. It is rare when you cannot. I would suggest you skip this film for now and go see something else, like "One Hour Photo" or "The Good Girl". Be sure to catch it on video, though, because you probably won't be disappointed. And, for fun, you can rent "Ransom", watch them back to back, and then jot down the similarities. You should have at least a paragraph full. You can see "Trapped" with it 'escapes' onto home video.

-- Billy Ray ( 2 1/2 out of 4 pops )

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Other Junkie's opinions.....

Matt ( 3 out of 4 pops )

"Trapped" is unremarkable and mildly conventional, but full of suspense. I had a damn good time. The film was directed by Luis Mandoki, who also directed "Angel Eyes"--another very good film. The shaky camerawork helps add tension to each scene. The cast is first-rate, with Kevin Bacon playing the villain...again. Yes, we've seen him play this role before, but he's great at it. Dakota Fanning, who was terrific in "I Am Sam", delivers another terrific performance. The film contains a few clichés that we've seen before. For example, we have the "nice guy" who has to keep an eye on the kidnapee. He's so nice at times that you wonder why he's involved in this kidnapping in the first place. We've seen this before in Ron Howard's "Ransom" with Donnie Wahlberg's character. And without giving anything away, I'm pretty sure an evil kidnapper like Kevin Bacon wouldn't allow his hostage to go to the bathroom without him watching. Sure, that would be perverse, but then again so is he. There's a window to jump out of, there are razors in the medicine cabinet. That's a pretty stupid move. And there are also a few loose ends in the plot. As the film progresses, we learn Kevin Bacon's and Courtney Love's (his wife) motives for kidnapping the child, but what was his motives for the other four kidnappings? Despite its flaws, "Trapped" is an exciting, edge-of-your-seat thriller. And as I mentioned beforehand, it's lots of fun watching Kevin Bacon play the villain.