Synopsis for
Senseless (2008) More at IMDbPro »

Elliott Gast (Jason Behr) is quickly climbing the corporate ladder of international commerce, negotiating deals to generate large fortunes for giant corporations. His success makes him the target for political extremists who kidnap him and broadcast his imprisonment and mutilation over the internet as macabre reality show and fundraiser.

The masked leader only known as Blackbeard (Joe Ferrara) explains that he is being punished for his crimes committed for American economic imperialism. His kidnapping and subsequent torture is to change who he is by "taking away what is most valuable to him," and serve as an object lession. Over several days they systematically deprive him of his sense of taste, smell, etc. Prior to the removal of each sense is a flashback of how much he enjoyed the sense he is about to lose.

Nim (Emma Catherwood), appointed as his nurse and liaison to the group may be a potential ally as she lets him know she agrees with the aims of their movement, but not the methods. He tries to convince her to take a more active role in helping him escape. She tells him it will be over much faster if he submits. Eliott becomes more desperate as it becomes clear that his kidnappers will not stop his torture until they have deprived him of all five of his senses.

During his captivity, the movie periodically flashes back to his childhood (young Eliott played by Toby Marlow). The first scene is when bullies attempt to drown him and he is rescued by his brother. Protesting that he hasn't done anything to them, his brother says that being innocent never mattered. The remainder of the childhood flashback concern an incident where he cheats a blind man. Upon learning about it, his father (Sean O'Kane) reprimands him, forces him to make amends, and then serve penance by going to all the neighbors and apologizing for what he had done.