2 out of 5

Director: Miguel Ángel Vivas

Have you seen “Strangers?” “Funny Games?” Maybe you saw Jennifer Carpenter’s freakouts in “Quarantine?” Okay, then you can skip this one. First – as the other reviews mentions, as of my viewing on december 4th 2011, this Spanish language film is, in fact, dubbed. And the dubbing ain’t good. That Quarantine-esque shrieking in some scenes requires our dubsters to dub every pant and shriek and gasp, which must be difficult, admittedly, but bearing that in mind doesn’t fix that it… doesn’t work. Second – go to bloody-disgusting.com and search for their review on this movie. The review there is smart and – yeah, since I agree with it – also seems accurate. On the whole, it states: Kidnapped has some impressive technique behind it, and draws interesting elements from its presumed influences, but isn’t very enjoyable. We are essentially watching an 85 minute home invasion film. Director Miguel Angel Vivas supposedly constructed the film out of 12 long shots. You’ll notice these amazing sequences from the opening scene. While there might be some creative cuts in there, the technical achievement is impressive. Perhaps Vivas chose this style to keep the viewer trapped along with his lead family, but it doesn’t seem to work. There’s no meat here. Funny Games has off-beat intrigue and while I didn’t like Strangers, it took it’s time to build some nice creeps. Kidnapped has neither depth or creeps. The acting seems good (hard to tell with the dubbing), and the kidnappers are mostly threatening, but after the initial intense invasion, all the shrieks and eventual gore don’t cut it, and these long camera shot seem pointless, especially with the split screen which pops in here and there. Lastly – poor sound mixing. Could’ve just been my stereo, but the sound seemed mixed so that you only hear what you’re supposed to, going against the reality feel. Visually interesting, but not thrilling, and all the “risks” here have been taken in better films.