One of the hardest to watch endings I’ve seen in YEARS.

Kidnapped (2010)
Directed By: Miguel Ángel Vivas
Reviewer: Chuck Conry

The Prologue
When you’ve seen as many horror movies as I’ve seen, you tend to just watch them, review them, and move on to the next one. It’s a never ending process that in time can make a whole load of films you’ve seen just become a blur in the memory bank, and when you are getting a lot of films from places you very seldom have time to go back and re-watch anything. But now and again, you see a movie that for better or worse sticks with you. It makes a bit of an impact for one reason or another, and the film, Kidnapped, from Spain is one of those that stuck with me. As a matter of fact, what I saw in the film didn’t just stick with me, a lot of it bothered me.

The Movie
Three hooded Eastern-European criminals burst into a home in a Madrid gated community, holding the family hostage in its own home, and forcing the father to empty his credit cards. Now everyone is very much on the edge, but the father of the family is promised that if he just plays along and does what he is told that all will be OK. Now this brings forth the question of if he can believe these people or not? Also, unexpected to all involved, one of these hooded men is very much a loose cannon, and that makes things go from really bad to worse.

One thing that sets this film apart from many others is the realistic way it’s presented. Now, it doesn’t go the lost footage route or anything of that nature, but the way it is and the way everyone acts make it seem like it could be any well off family. That’s probably why when it comes the point where these people find themselves inside their own home becoming hostages that it’s actually pretty freaky and gives off a real sense of terror. It really does become a bit nerve wrecking from the person watching as the tension rises on the screen. I was tapping my fingers, I was wiggling on my couch, things just go up onto a whole new level when the crap hits the fan here.

And when it hits the fan things never really do slow down. The tension builds, the situation gets worse and worse for everyone on screen and you just feel the doom and gloom that comes along with this stuff. You may not even go as far as to say you like the people on screen that this is happening to, but you do feel very bad for them. You wish help would come, and the film does a marvelous job of building you up to think help is on the way only to let you down..probably with the very same disappointment our family on the screen is supposed to be feeling as well.

While the film is up and down on the emotional meter, it’s the ending that I found the most disturbing, meaning that even now, a few days after seeing it happen, it still somewhat bugs me. That’s rare for me, I’ve seen a zillion horrible things happen on screen, but this one got to me. Perhaps it was just the buildup to it all, but something about the ending is just soo morbid. I say with complete confidence that it’s the hardest to watch ending I’ve seen in YEARS and I think a lot of you will agree. Not even counting the ending, there is some other graphic and hard to watch stuff in this film as well. I think looking back now, it’s clear we have a director that knows how to tell a story. And the story here does get told in a very realistic and powerful way.

The Conclusion
It’s hard to watch, but it’s very much worth seeing. And I also think it will stick with you after you have seen it. I think these days you seem to always find your best films on the foreign market, and Kidnapped is another point to that argument. Of course, this movie won’t be for everyone. But I do think whoever sees it will be left knowing it’s a good film, even if it’s not their kind of film.

The Rating (8/10)