Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Yvan Attal | ... | Stanislas Graff | |
Anne Consigny | ... | Françoise Graff | |
André Marcon | ... | André Peyrac | |
Françoise Fabian | ... | Marjorie | |
Alex Descas | ... | Maître Walser | |
Michel Voïta | ... | Le commissaire Paoli | |
Gérard Meylan | ... | Le Marseillais | |
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Maxime Lefrançois | ... | Bertaux |
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Christophe Kourotchkine | ... | Jean-Jacques Garnier |
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Sarah Messens | ... | Véronique Graff |
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Julie Kaye | ... | Martine Graff (as Julia Kaye) |
Marc Rioufol | ... | Le commandant Chenut | |
Patrick Descamps | ... | Massart | |
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Bertrand Constant | ... | Le capitaine Verne |
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Tania Torrens | ... | Madame Keller |
Stanislaff Graff, a rich industrialist with a wife and a lover, is kidnapped brutally from his limousine on the eve of his visit to China as part of the entourage of the French president. The kidnappers demand a fifty million euro ransom. In order to prove they are serious, they cut off one of his fingers. What follows is a terrifying sparring match between kidnappers, police and the board of the company of which Graff is the director. The main question for the board: is a human life worth more than fifty million euros? Will they be able to get that amount of money together in time anyway? While they decide this he degenerates physically and mentally in imprisonment. In the meantime, the press dredges up the businessman's past with revelations that are especially painful for his wife. Written by International Film Festival Rotterdam
Rapt (2009)
This is like other European crime movies I've seen, very detailed and low key, and seemingly very realistic. This one is like the others in that it's sort of interesting all along but rarely compelling. There is, in a weird way, no drama, not in movie terms. The facts are dramatic--kidnapping, torturing the hostage, that kind of thing--but the movie plays it all out in a realistic way that emphasizes police procedure, gentle conversations with loved ones left behind, and lots of waiting with the hostage takers being meanies.
It's weird to belittle this movie because in a way it's really competent, even very good if this is what you want. Compared to American (Hollywood) kidnapping scenarios (that Mel Gibson movie comes to mind), this makes the Hollywood versions ridiculous. But at least the Hollywood intention to entertain, to create high drama, is fulfilled. Here, in "Rapt," we are not actually ever rapt (that is, suspended in some kind of riveted attention).
If you sort of know this isn't your kind of movie, I'd skip it. If you do like very realistic crime films that are made with great attention and lots of empty spaces (at least psychically), then you might well really like this. In the details, I found the conversations between the family and cops trying to rescue him really dull and not quite believable, and I found the scenes where the hostage takers were roughing up the hostage too prolonged and unnecessary. This alone dragged the whole experience down. For me.
It's worth noting that the movie scored many awards in France, and that the Rotten Tomatoes rating is really high for it. The IMDb rating seems more in line, to me, for now (about 6.7 at the time of this writing).