Description

It was a crime planned with cold, brutal precision. Vic (the amazing Eddie Marsan) and Danny (Martin Compston, best known in these parts for his memorable performances in DOOMSDAY and SWEET SIXTEEN) have kidnapped a billionaire’s young daughter, Alice Creed (CLASH OF THE TITANS’ Gemma Arterton) and strapped her to a bed nailed into the ground in an apartment that’s been fortified to serve as a prison and forced her to record a videotaped statement pleading for the two-million-Euro ransom that can prevent her execution. Now all Vic and Danny need to do is wait. Right? Time clicks ahead, inching the kidnappers closer to zero hour, tension mounting relentlessly and all manner of cracks begin to appear in the proverbial fabric. Talk is anything but cheap as the trio’s panic escalates, shifting powers in some very surprising ways. Alas, the best laid plans of mice and men lead to a chaotic, bloody and anxiety-shot disaster of a kidnapping plot!

Lauded everywhere from TIFF to Tribeca and hailed by many as the most striking British genre-film debut since SHALLOW GRAVE, this taught U.K. crime thriller has taken the indie film universe by storm. Writer/director J Blakeson (who recently scripted THE DESCENT 2) strips the kidnapping thriller genre down to raw, exposed muscle, working with only three characters and three locations, twists peppering his story’s path like tiny landmines. The performances are fantastic across the board, but if one standout demands a mention, it’s that of Eddie Marsan. Unforgettable in such diverse films as ME AND ORSON WELLES, HEARTLESS (also stalking the Fantasia screen this year!), THE ILLUSIONIST, V FOR VENDETTA and the recent SHERLOCK HOLMES, Marsan reaches new heights here. His Vic is a sweaty, dangerous time bomb wracked with an almost suffocating vulnerability. As if you need another reason to see this film! The tension is thick enough to cut with a knife and Blakeson’s direction is micro-calculated to the frame, making for one hell of an entertaining ride that never stops surprising. Are we bearing witness to the birth of the next Danny Boyle, as so many journalists in the world media have been screaming? If his DISAPPEARANCE is anything to go by, we most certainly are!

—Mitch Davis