The Captive

Atom Egoyan's latest film The Captive, takes a while to find its ground. The first twenty or so minutes are preoccupied with establishing the different time periods that dominate the film. But once the general plot becomes clear, it proves to be a relatively interesting, if not entirely captivating thriller.

Matthew (Ryan Reynolds) is a landscaper who has a young daughter, accomplished skater, Cass (Peyton Kennedy), with Tina (Mireille Enos). One day, when Matthew goes to buy a pie, Cass is kidnapped by Mika (Kevin Durand), a creepy presumed paedophile. Jump forward six years and Matthew and a small team of detectives are still searching for Cass. Mika has lost interest in her, but he uses her to lure other children, whilst in favour, allowing her to watch her parents through a surveillance system.

The Captive is in some ways, quite similar to Egoyan's previous film Devils Knot. The bleak imagery and slow camera movements both raise the tension and create a powerful, dismal setting. The plots both hold similar themes, with the disappearance of children, however The Captive proves more challenging with its paedophilic nature. At times it is quite difficult tocwatch, but unfortunately, towards the end it reverts more to a generic thriller, rather than pushing the envelope and grapple with the issues that it uses to frame the story.

Ryan Reynolds is fine as Matthew, although he spends most of the movie frustrated and confused. Mireille Enos is strong in some scenes, but does tend to overreact. The most powerful performance comes from Kevin Durand, who is bone-chilling and down-right creepy as Mika. The supporting characters generally don't bring much to the film, although Peyton Kennedy is quite good as the young Cass.

The Captive has a decent cast and some challenging themes, but unfortunately it fails to address those themes and simply becomes a typical thriller.

Devil's Knot

 Atom Egoyan's film Devil's Knot dramatises the real life events that surround the trial of the West Memphis Three, who were charged with the 1993 murder of three boys. The topic has been subject to many previous documentaries and indepth analysis, so where does this film fit in?

On May 5th 1993, Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore, three young boys from West Memphis, Arkansas, were riding their bicycles in Robin Hood Hills when they were murdered. After the police discovered their bodies, the suggestion was that members of a local satanic cult had murdered the children. Jessie Misskelley, Jr, Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols were treated as the prime suspects, and the film follows their trial.

Many have criticised this film for it's depiction of a story that has already been well documented, especially with the Paradise Lost documentary trilogy, and hence is of little interest to those who are already aware of the events. I, on the other hand, went into this with very little knowledge of the story and generally found it quite intriguing. I understand that it could be boring for viewers well versed in what happened but I personally never lost interest the whole way through.

Firth may well have been an unusual choice to play Ron Lax, but once you get past the fact that it's Colin Firth on the screen putting on what I found to be a fairly convincing southern accent, he really does give another of his great performances here. Reese Witherspoon, on the other hand, wasn't really anything special in this I found. Not terrible, just not great.

Some of the images are violent and quite confronting at times, but they do well to present the events and bring the 'thriller' genre in the film out. Crucial information surrounding the case is presented through informative subtitles that never draw our attention away from the action, although the final summarising of the events from the end of the trial up to the present could come across as lazy film making to some.

If you have previously learnt about the Memphis Three through other means, then this is probably not the film for you, but for audiences who are looking to understand these tragic events without watching three documentary movies, then this is quite a strong film that delivers the narrative effectively, thanks by and large to Firth's performance.