Kidnapping Stella

When I came across this movie on Netflix, I said to myself upon reading its description, "Hey, this sounds familiar." In the first two minutes of watching the movie, my suspicions were confirmed - this German movie is a remake of the 2009 British movie "The Disappearance of Alice Creed", which I had seen years earlier and remembered enjoying. I was not sure if this remake was authorized or not, but I was interested all the same to seeing an interpretation of the original story by filmmakers of another country. This remake does mostly follow what happened in the original, though it does throw in some new twists, as well as eliminate a few plot points. On its own terms, the movie is okay, being not boring, and acceptably acted. Yet I remember the original movie being more rawer and gritty than this remake, partially due to its lower budget. Because of that I found the original movie to be a lot more compelling than this somewhat more glossy and slicker remake. So far, the other user reviews of this remake have largely been very negative. While I don't think this remake is deserving of such harsh reviews, at the same time it is definitely a few notches below the original. So if you have a choice between seeing either movie, I would say watch the original.