The Girl Who Escaped: The Kara Robinson Story

Of course this LifeTime film ignored some of the more brutal aspects of Kara Robinson's kidnapping and her eventual escape at the hands of her kidnapper Richard Evonitz. Both lead actors Katie Douglas who played Kara Robinson and little known (but busy) character actor. Kristian Bruun who played the real life kidnapper Richard Evonitz excelled in their respective roles.

After Richard is successful in containing the frightened Kara in his apartment he begins to ask her a series of personal questions that any parent of a teenage child would be disgusted with having to listen to, let alone realize what was about to happen to Kara repeatedly over the next 18 hours at the hands of her kidnapper Richard Evonitz.

Escape was on Kara's mind from the get go, and if the viewer realizes that this was an actual kidnapping and sexual assault the viewer need only try and put themselves in Kara's position and ask yourself the following: "Would I have the same determination and focus as Kara did to survive and escape?"

I rate this true crime story a decent 7 out of 10 IMDb rating.

15-year-old Kara Robinson (Katie Douglas) gets taken from her friend's front lawn by gun-wielding creepy Richard Evonitz (Kristian Bruun) in broad daylight. He forces her into a plastic container. Her mother Debra Robinson (Cara Buono) struggles to get the police to take her seriously.

The first half is mostly Kara with her creepy captor. She has the mantra of survival which seems to be the theme of the movie. The second half could have been an intense manhunt for the creep, but the movie is more interested in Kara. I can appreciate that in a Lifetime true crime story. As for Katie Douglas, the twentysomething does look like a small teenager when compared to Kristian Bruun. That helps sell the realism.

An excellent movie to watch and follow what's been happening. Very simple and easy to watch. No twists or adding fictions or making a long series out of it or no dilutions or no camera shaking. Just pure and simply made to show what happened, facts !

Amazing acting by Katie Douglas. Great expressions at the right times and beautifully played. Can't believe she is 24 in real life but acted as a 15 year old girl in this movie. She is easily believable as 15 here. Would love to watch more of her work in future.

Don't know why other reviewers are so critical and analyzing technically, and lower ratings. This is just a movie based on true story, and I believe the film makers done well in both parts, abduction and aftermath. You guys easily rate garbage movies so high like the new Black Panther, yet rate low on good movies like this one.

Shocked by some of these reviews!

Comments on police incompetence and Kara being bratty ?

It is showing what actually happens, not what we normally see in these dramatising kidnap stories, I almost had to remind myself it was a true story as I kept thinking police were involved somehow.

Kara wasn't bratty, remember what the kidnapper said "you'll always be the girl that was raped". She didn't want it to define her, not everyone reacts in the same way to trauma. I suppose we would have to speak to the real Kara to know if this was a good representation of herself.

Granted some of the smaller roles could have been played better but I feel it was a good film overall about a true story.

So this is a real story about a girl that kidnapped that really touched me. I liked some technicalities such as the sound design, cause it was often like a heartbeat which really made my heartbeat follow the rhythm. Plus I liked the performance of little Kara, she was really good, and the fact that the movie did not show the violent scenes. Finally I liked the simple cinematography.

What I didn't like: well the screenplay was not as great, there were some holes. Also some people were saying the same thing over and over again, it was not a certain word or phrase but whole dialogs. I understand that in real life in this situation you would probably make the same conversations but this is a movie, and the audience is going to get bored sometimes.

Otherwise it was really good one of the best of its kind.