The Captive has more pluses than minuses so let me explain the pluses first.
Plus - The suspense is present from the very opening scene. Ryan Reynolds plays an independent landscaping contractor named Matthew Lane who adores his little girl, and never misses her figure skating practices, or competitions. His wife Tina Lane played by Mireille Enos is also much in love with her husband Matthew and their daughter Cassandra. When Matthew makes his regular weekly stop to pick up his daughters' favorite cherry rhubarb pie after her figure skating practice, Cass is lying down in the back of Matthew's truck when he goes in to the restaurant to pick up the pie. What happens next is every parents worse nightmare, and in reality there are tens of thousands of families over the past 50 years that have lived this exact tragedy. Matthew casually comes out of the restaurant, pie in hand, but his little Cass is nowhere to be found. There are no other vehicles in the restaurant parking lot, there are no other people in the restaurant other than the waitress. Poor little Cass has vanished into thin air. Who is responsible for this henious act?
We then witness the initial interrogation by the two lead detectives Nicole (played by Rosario Dawson) and Jeff (played by Scott Speedman) of the last known person to see little Cass, that person being Matthew Lane, her distraught father. Obviously any competent police force realizes statistically that kidnapped children usually know their abductors, and historically a good percentage of abductions (and the imminent murder of kidnapped children) are caused by the children's parent(s). So Matthew should have been a bit more cooperative with the detectives during that initial interrogation. Was he involved or not? We the audience are really not quite sure...and so the suspense continues.
Kevin Durand plays Mika, who is second in command to a major construction firm, and whose real passion is kidnapping little girls like Cass and exploiting them to pedophiles on the world wide web. His creepiness and intellect are ever present and the audience wonders if Cass will ever be free of her captor Mika, from her secluded basement dwelling in his home.
I also want to thank director Atom Egoyan for purposely excluding any gratuitous gore or sexual content related to pedophilia. Mr Egoyan obviously respects his audience and realizes that we the audience can conceptualize what poor little Cass is being exposed to over her 8 year captivity and presenting any sensitive scenes relating to pedophilia would not have added any value to his film. Thank you Mr. Egoyan for keeping your suspense film classy.
Minuses - The director, Atom Egoyan, uses a technique that other suspense films have used quite frankly, much more effective than in this film. The technique I am referring to is to flip the various scenes between current, and past time frames, to the point where it has a negative effect on the level of suspense and adds no value in explaining the initial capture of Cass that has now extended in to an 8 year unsolved kidnapping.
The two lead detectives played by Rosario Dawson and Scott Speedman doesn't really work. Detective Jeff (Scott Speedman) plays more of an antagonist to Cass's father Matthew Lane as he has pre-determined his guilt in Cass's disappearance. The film never shows the two detectives Nicole and Jeff making any forward progress on Cass's kidnapping other than observing a more mature Cass soliciting new jail bait for her captor Mika, by befriending young girls on the web. In fact it is Cass's daddy Matthew who eventually determines who the kidnappers are.
Without giving away the ending it is a bit of a letdown. Although there are a few loose ends not clearly explained such as mom's housekeeping duties in a Niagara Falls hotel being monitored by the kidnappers as they leave Cass's mom Tina clues in the rooms that she cleans such as Cass's baby teeth, hair brush and figure skating trophy to witness Tina's distraught reactions to remind Tina her daughter is held captive.
Director Atom Egoyan should stick more to the reliable chronological approach to the films sequencing rather than his film style of switching between past and present timelines for various scenes. Overall though I give the film a decent 7 out of 10 rating as the main actors are all very good in their respective roles, the suspense is present regardless if some other reviews say contrary. It is not quite on the same level of Anthony Hopkins version of Hannibal Lecter in the superb film Silence of the Lambs, but your money will still be well spent by viewing The Captive. I give it a thumbs up.
