Abduction

In France, we only know the Chuck Norris' garbage films directed by Jo Zito, and certainly not his early stuff. Maybe we don't miss much. And from this point of view, I nevertheless tried this one, at my own risks. And, believe it or not, I was not disappointed at all. Of course we can prefer the Paul Schrader's PATTY HEARST, maybe more accurate, but this pretty little movie deserves to be seen. At least for the surprising ending, shocking for some audiences. The performance from the female lead is very good too, for such a B picture I mean. And I also appreciated the police assault sequence on the wrong house, when the editing prepared the audience to the abductor's hideout...This scheme reminded me some other features, the most famous being SILENCE OF THE LAMBS...But there were more. And I am also surprised that Lawrence Tierney is not credited in the IMDb characters list.

I'm not really surprised that this film has been banished into obscurity - the kidnap plot doesn't contain all that much in the way of the excitement that mainstream crowd craves, and it doesn't contain much in the way of exploitation, which a lot of the cult crowd craves. That being said, this is a surprisingly decent little film, directed by Joseph Zito; the director who would go on to direct the strangely popular slasher flick 'The Prowler' as well as an entry in the Friday the 13th series. The film is based on a book named Black Abductor written by Harrison James. Black Abductor is a book about a political kidnapping; and it's interesting that a year after the novel was released, the story actually happened as Patricia Hearst was abducted for political reasons. The plot follows a political group who kidnap the daughter of a politician and want the destruction of a building for the ransom. At first the girl is afraid of her kidnappers, but soon she warms to them and even decides to dedicate herself to their cause.

The film is not very ambitious and I would have assumed it was a TV movie had I not known otherwise. Most of it takes place in a single location and the director keeps the focus on the main characters. This enforces the abduction plot line well as we are constantly reminded that the girl is being forcibly held captive; or at least for a short while after she is abducted. The idea of Stockholm Syndrome - that being where a victim falls in love with their kidnapper is very interesting and the film plays up to the offbeat kidnapping story well. The acting is generally very good with Judith-Marie Bergan convincing in the lead role and receiving good support from a rugged cast of abductors. The plot moves rather slowly and clearly the main point of the film is to focus on the interplay between the main characters and this is always interesting and keeps the film going. It boils down to a fitting and suitable shocking twist ending and overall I have to say that this is a very good film from Joseph Zito and I certainly prefer it to his slasher films that I saw previously. Recommended if you can find it.

Not until after the credits rolled did I find out the interesting history behind this novel adaptation. The novel this movie was based on, Black Abductor, was published a year before the exact same thing happened with a girl by the name of Patty Hearst. In the book/film, Patricia Prescott (Judith-Marie Berigan) is kidnapped by political activists who believe with her they can get Mr. Prescott (Leif Erickson), a prominent politician, to reverse the opening of some high-rise apartments. The federal government supposedly allotted money to Mr. Prescott to build low-income housing, but he, being the corrupt republican, used the money to secure a business deal on some gaudy high-rent jobs. To the surprise of even the activists, Patricia falls in love with the ideals of the group and asks to join the cause. The print I watched looked terrible, and the volume was very inconsistent, but that aside I enjoyed the movie and felt it moved at a very appropriate pace. Some of the sex seemed gratuitous, but I'm guessing it's only because the original novel was intended as an adult sex novel. Zito went on to direct arguably the best of the crappy Friday the 13th series, 'The Final Chapter' (the fourth one I think), but it's not surprising that Hollywood trusted him after this solid beginning. Rating: 25/40