The Disappearance of Alice Creed (2010)

This film disappointed me so much that I cannot review it without Spoilers...When I first saw the trailer for this movie...I was blown away...I thought for sure that it was going to a very well-acted and suspenseful movie...It was kinda suspenseful at first...Right up until the scene where Alice Creed was forced to pee in a vase...Unfortunately...From that point on...The movie falls flat on its face by making three big mistakes...Number One: Alice Creed turns out to know one of the two kidnappers...Once this truth is revealed...The suspense goes right out of the window...Number Two: She actually agrees to go along with the whole kidnapping scam that was planned by the kidnapper she knows...This was an idiotic plot twist that makes the story become very silly...Number Three: The two kidnappers turn out to be lovers...Another plot twist that ruined the film...Why? Because then the movie turns into a silly love triangle...Now the one kidnapper is gonna have to make a choice between his relationship with his lover...Or should he take sides with Alice Creed...This movie was nothing more than a soap opera with silly plot twists and a serious lack of suspense...And that's all there is too it...

This seems to be a popular film with most who have written about it. I found it grubby and distasteful on various levels. The way Alice is stripped and treated was a little graphic I thought. Okay Gemma naked is ticking a lot of boxes but what's happened to allowing the viewer to use a little imagination? The urination scene was not needed. Why not choose a bolt hole with a bathroom or at least another room even if it only contained a bucket. I get the idea of showing how the victim is dehumanised and it's all part of the plan to demonstrate how easy it is to make someone fearful. Then the relationship between the blokes. Chaps sticking their tongues down each others throats is not something I want to see. Again we don't need to be shown every detail, we can imagine. Once Alice gets the gun, why didn't she just shoot the bloke in the kneecap, take the keys and get out of there? The phone has been mentioned by others, leave it turned on and it will be traced. Not a film I want to see again, once was enough.

But I didn't expect a good, tense film to break out. I figured this would just be some trash straight to DVD film, that I just skim through, laugh at the ridiculous stuff, see Gemma and call it a day.But right from the opening shot it was a lot better than I thought it'd be. It was tense and menacing and all without a word being spoken. It didn't get as ugly as I was afraid it would from the opening, but it got a lot more interesting. I kept thinking I knew what type of story they were telling and they kept surprising me.All 3 gave great performances, and I liked that it was only the 3 of them the whole time. Well written, well shot, well acted and I liked the ending...especially with the clever credit. It's much better than the sum of Gemma's bits, and that's saying a lot.

Alice Creed dragged by two masked men in a van, then placed in a room with padded walls and tied to a bed with handcuffs. The kidnappers are after a big ransom, which they expect from her father. But things do not go quite as planned, and soon the victim finds that one of the two criminals is not unknown. It starts a big confusion with an uncertain outcome.Casually, the story takes us through simple but devilishly effective twists to heights of suspense, downplaying the role of each of the three protagonists, in turn changing role. The terms "victim", "hangman" and "accomplice" here are undermined, leaving the audience stunned by the last surprise. Always remaining credible, despite a story about the razor's edge, it almost closed (the action is limited to a room, a kitchen, a shed and wood), owes much to the quality of the interpretation of the three actors.Some scenes really stand on their toes and the director even manages to make the audience laugh, despite a rather dramatic base.The psychology of the characters is fairly extensive, leaving us in the most total about the real intentions of each question. The interpretation of these is rather successful, despite a few details that it's hard to believe. But the director and maybe wanted to highlight the strangeness of the atmosphere of the film: an oppressive atmosphere, in perfect agreement with the narrow apartment where the two men have taken up residence. The film also plays a lot of silence, further increasing the pressure.However, it is too much pressure we can criticize the film. The story seems to get bogged down, and because of the pace is a bit too slow, you wonder if the director really knows where he is going ... The atmosphere may sometimes literally crush the viewer. And even if this is deliberate on the part of Blakeson, we left with the impression that he may have wanted to make a little too ... Result: a few wrong notes, but an effective thriller throughout.7.3/10