Review of Cage

Cage (I) (2016)
5/10
Harsh Reviews Here
21 September 2017
Warning: Spoilers
Man, saw this film on Tubitv, checked it out, came here for some reviews and everyone here has given it a 1/10. The few external reviews are a bit nicer. It doesn't start off that good, in my opinion. I mean, you have a whiny girl on a phone and my thought was "Is she going to be whiny throughout the film?" Pretty much. Her phone is her life. It's how she makes her living. She needs her phone yet she owes a lot of money to the phone company and they're threatening to cut her line. My thought was "Who cares?" It's a cell phone, not a home line. They're not literally taking her phone away, just cutting the service. Go buy a phone card; they're relatively cheap. Eh, whatever...

I laughed out loud when she actually dialed back the combination lock to all zeros and then started to do 00001, 00002, 00003 etc., while possible to figure out the combo it would take so long by the time you did figure it out you'd want to gouge out your eyes or break your own fingers. But she quit after four tries so apparently she wasn't quite there yet; she does try several other times throughout the film but gives up quickly each time. She has her phone but the bad guy has rules which she follows in this cage, in a warehouse, she is kept in. If one is expecting horror, really it comes down to: what is horror to you? Being locked up in a cage without a way out is not this girl's horror; being without her phone is. States it from the beginning which is why she's mainly relaxed in her cage. Don't get me wrong: she has her moments of panic, crying, whining, etc., but they are just so few and far between and this isn't exactly a long film at 80 minutes though it does move slowly but you're mainly just watching a girl in a cage.

One reviewer mentioned jamming technology in 2001 and whether it existed, or not: it did. The first cell phone came out in the early 1970s and jamming radio frequencies have been around decades before that. There is a psychological aspect to this film. The kidnapper says he's traveling but there's no evidence he actually is because all we see is her in a cage. Also, there is evidence that he actually hasn't gone anywhere based on the same things many of the reviewers here mention but then you get toward the end and we find he says he's on a hijacked plane by terrorists and he ends up dying on 09/11/01; so, that's solved but a bit inconsistent. Does the cage look flimsy? Sure...but looks, as anyone knows (or should), can be deceiving-- but that doesn't necessarily mean she has the strength to break them. Maybe she could but she's still chained up. I think the actual cage, in this film, is her mind rather than the physical one she believes she's trapped in. Of course she does finally figure out the combination but then realizes she's not free yet because she's chained up. The only true thing that bothered me was that she must be one of the heaviest sleepers out there because he comes and goes from the cage when she's asleep; unless he drugs her, or something?

A stronger script and actress would have been better but you work with what you got, and if that isn't a lot then you work with that. It's not the worst film I've seen; I've seen a few similar films these past 10-15 years and while none of them were great films they still kept my attention and didn't bore me...too much. This film is pretty much like those. And to those who think they can make a better film, all I can say to those people is: go do it. Until you do then you're just all talk and no substance. This isn't a great film but at least the filmmakers tried; and to them it may be perfectly fine (I doubt that; everyone who creates something artistically always looks for perfection; they may not wholeheartedly strive for it but they look for it) or not, who knows but them.
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