Captivity (2007)

Director: Roland Joffe

Starring: Elisha Cuthbert, Daniel Gillies, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Michael Harney, Laz Alonso, Maggie Damon, Carl Paoli, Trent Broin

More info: IMDb

Tagline: When You Think The Worst Has Happened....Think Worse

Plot: A young model is drugged, kidnapped and subject to harrowing torture in a cell of horrors in this spine chilling horror thriller. Jennifer is young, beautiful and famous. Everybody knows her name and her popularity brings her everything she wants in life- but one mans jealousy lures Jennifer to a dimension in torture when she finds herself drugged, captured and held in an underground maze of terror. Taken against her will and subject to psychological punishment, Jennifer soon questions her sanity as her watchful tormentor pits her in numerous twisted traps. After struggling to keep her mind, she meets with Gary, another prisoner in the sick games and together they try their wits to escape from the cells and defeat the madman behind the sick games.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? No.

Woof.  The first 55 minutes it appears to be nothing more than a SAW (2004) clone and I was disinterested for that very reason.  Then something happens in the last twenty or so minutes (it's only 80 minutes long without the end credits) and I perked right up and took a lot more notice.  See, until then I was seriously considering cutting back on the number of potentially shitty horror movies post 1990 and focus on the older stuff because a shitty movie from forty or sixty years ago is a lot easier to enjoy then one from the last twenty five.  Back to this flick.  The ending makes the movie but it's still tough to forgive the first hour.  I fully expected to hear a low, raspy voice asking if she'd like to play a game.  I was SHOCKED to discover that this was directed by the great Roland Joffe.  This is the guy who directed THE KILLING FIELDS (1984) and THE MISSION (1986) for crying out loud.  And here he is with this.  It's not a bad thing but he has taken a different path than his impressive early career would have suggested.  It's interesting that this felt like it was directed by a much younger director so at least he's not getting stale in his later career.  Should you see CAPTIVITY?  Absolutely, despite this being the director's lowest IMDb user rated film.