Captifs

The fact that I have seen quite a few movies, not only with a similar story(line) as this one, does not help while watching it. The fact, that it tries to be earnest and thinks of itself as serious psycho-thriller add to the odd feeling that something has gone terribly wrong. It is neither as great as it thinks it is nor is it simple romp. It is somewhere in between.

It tries hard to please to groups of people. The people who like to have a heart and mind to those types of movies, but also the people who like the horror and terror in that situation. Unfortunately the characters are not fleshed out enough (no pun intended) for this to happen. A little bit more of a back-story would have been helpful. But then again this might have been bad for those who were just waiting for the "juicy" parts.

The matter that is being handled here, does deserve a better movie (imo). A shame that this movie does not handle it as it should

If you like this movie, you should also watch a movie where band of jewish soldiers capture german civilians during WW2, takes them in the working camp and at the end kills them in the gas chamber while jewish doctors do experiments on them.

In the former Yugoslavia, the French medical team formed by Carole (Zoé Félix), Samir (Arié Elmaleh) and Dr. Mathias (Eric Savin) is returning from Kosovo to Paris by truck. They find a road block and the soldier tells that the army had found mines on the road and is deactivating them; therefore they should wait three hours to follow their journey.

Dr. Mathias suggests Carole to drive through a secondary road and they get lost. They ask for direction in an isolated house and sooner a van intercepts their truck in a lonely road. They are abducted and arrested in dirty cells but fed. When Samir is removed from the cell, they find the true intention of the kidnappers.

I do not know how many movies similar to "Captifs" that I have recently seen. Only in Brazil, three different films have been released with the same Brazilian title in the last years ("Captivity" (2007); "Captifs" (2010); and "Open House" (2010)). I was discussing with a friend of mine about the lack of new ideas and screenplays in the cinema industry, reason why for so many remakes and films with the same storyline.

Back to "Captifs", despite the well-known storyline, the film has good acting, make-up and keeps the tension until the very last scene. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Cativeiro" ("The Captivity")

I randomly watched this without any real idea of what the film was supposed to be. In fact I was hoping for the "twist" to be something more surreal or supernatural (like a portal to hell or something), but unfortunately that was not the case.

For one thing, the trope of Serbia being this dark and horrible place (and Eastern countries in general) is tired, shallow and inaccurate. There's some inconsistencies another user pointed out, one big obvious being the "bad guy" with a Serbian tattoo.

Acting is decent, filmwork itself is quite good as well, but the whole thing comes across as rushed, half-assed and predictable. While I wouldn't call this "French Hostel", it's on the same level as far as quality goes. Stereotypical characters, obvious "twists and turns", nothing terribly memorable.

In my opinion, it's particularly disrespectful to base a film on horrible real events and just sort-of switch the characters' ethnicities around. The main premise could still be based on real events but would've worked better had they maybe picked a completely different location or with less focus on the characters' nationalities.

Nothing special here, might as well watch an M Night Shalalalam if you're in the mood for something tepid and mediocre.

Not bad. Decent plot, though fairly conventional for a horror movie, and reminiscent of Turistas. Gritty direction. Short duration, which is good.

Performances are OK.