ARTSETC.
Trapped in Crap
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by Avi Flombaum
Monday, September 30, 2002
Let’s play “Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon.”
“Trapped,” Luis Mandoki’s (“Message in a Bottle”) newest suspense thriller, can help link Kevin Bacon to say, Peter Sellers, in less than seven steps. First, Kevin Bacon is in “Trapped” with Charlize Theron. She is in “The Devil’s Advocate” with Al Pacino, who is in “The Godfather” with Diane Keaton. Keaton is in “Annie Hall” with Woody Allen, who is in “Casino Royale” with Peter Sellers. Unfortunately, these crucial links to Kevin Bacon are the best thing “Trapped” has to offer.
“Trapped” is the story of a foolproof plan designed by self-proclaimed kidnapping expert Joe Hickey (Bacon) and his terrible twosome, including his wife, Cheryl Hickey (Courtney Love, “Man on the Moon”) and cousin, Marvin Pool (Pruitt Taylor Vince, “Simone”).
The plan is to have one member of their gang with each victim, so Marvin with six-year-old Ashley Jennings (Dakota Fanning, “I Am Sam”), Joe with the sly seductress Karen Jennings (Theron) and Cheryl with brave husband Dr. Will Jennings (Stuart Townsend, “Queen of the Damned”).
When the Jennings refuse to fall victim to this kidnapping, Joe’s brilliant plan begins to unravel as asthma, malpractice, and some sort of paralyzing potion complicate the issue.
The movie begins nicely. Bacon is intelligent and composed, which plays nicely off the volatile and shaky Theron. And their performances parallel their characters; Bacon does a good job at all times, both calm and agitated, while Theron can’t change her facial expressions at all and just looks clueless the entire film.
The counter-characters work well as Love tries to seduce the faithful Townsend. Again, Townsend delivers a rounded performance, while Love just looks stoned.
Once the plot begins getting complicated, it never stops. The viewer is trapped watching these characters jeopardize each others’ lives in almost every single frame. Believing that any of these characters cares about one another becomes impossible, as Townsend lands a plane in front of the vehicle his daughter is in — What did he think would happen? Did this father think the truck would safely stop after colliding with the biplane and allow his daughter to run out unharmed by the collision, explosion, and the following collisions — oh, wait, that is what happens.
This movie has more manufactured breath-taking pauses then a Lamaze class.
“Trapped” is a victim of its own time, so you can’t blame the rookie action director for the farfetched ending. The finesse in suspense that came with Hitchcock has been traded in for biplane crashes, botched circumcisions, and asthma attacks (but honestly, that was a scary asthma-attack scene). When will Hollywood learn that you don’t need to blow something up to make a movie a thriller? When people stop wasting their money on films like “Trapped.”
Grade: D
