Captifs (2010) - film review

Carole is a member of a humanitarian team whose mission in the Balkans is nearing its end.  On the way back home, she and her co-workers are brutally attacked and abducted by a band of criminals whose motive is unclear.  Who are the kidnappers?  What do they want?  The truth is more terrifying than Carole can ever have guessed...

French cinema’s recently acquired obsession with vicious survival thrillers shows little sign of abating although it is becoming painfully evident that the directors and screenwriters are fast running out of ideas.  The latest entry in this increasingly formulaic genre is Captifs, a respectable debut feature from director Yann Gozlan whose only real fault is that it adds absolutely nothing to a genre that has so manifestly run its course.  On the plus side, it is an atmospheric piece that sustains its tension and grimly fatalistic mood remarkably well, mainly through a combination of unsettling camerawork and slick editing.  On the downside, it is so drenched in clichés that watching it is like suffering from a bout of chronic déjà vu, and its plot is so threadbare that even the briefest of résumés manages to encapsulate its entire content, spoilers and all.

Whilst the references to other films in the slasher, survival and psycho-thriller genres are perhaps a little to obvious, Captifs still manages to hang together and hold our interest, being all the more effective as its director somehow resists the temptation to cover his actors and the set with gallons of theatrical blood.  The ’less is more’ principle is amply demonstrated by this film.  Captifs has much more in common with the early psycho-thrillers of the ’60s and ’70s than the frenzied gore-fests of more recent times, more concerned with the mental distress of the protagonists than in presenting a pointless orgy of Grand Guignol blood splattering excess.  Whilst, on paper, the characters are thinly developed and a pretty superficial bunch, this is at least partly compensated for by the quality of the acting, which is above average for a film of this kind.  Arié Elmaleh and Zoé Félix, who are both better known for comedy, each turns in a respectable dramatic performance that lends a great deal to the film’s tension and realism.  Captifs is unlikely to win any awards for originality but it is a surprisingly effective little thriller which manages to shock without resorting to the crass juvenile excesses that have become de rigueur for this now virtually mined-out genre.

© James Travers 2011

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