Bound to Vengeance (2015)

I know that most movies are fiction and that we are not only supposed to not believe what happens on screen, but we should also not expect the people nor their environment to conform to what occurs in real life. But that never stops us from hoping and wishing that the characters would just do what normal people would do. Or do what we believe they SHOULD do.This movie started off so strong then it took a turn toward what-the-heck-is-this-ville. The movie starts off with a woman escaping her captor who had her locked in a basement in the middle of nowhere. She gets the better of him but then has nowhere to go because the phones don't work (big surprise) and she doesn't have the keys to the van outside. She finally musters up the courage and the weaponry to demand the keys to the van to do what? To escape? To go to the police? No. To go round up the other captured girls because that makes the most sense. That's exactly what traumatized escapees do.The movie was a tale of revenge. I don't begrudge the movie for being about revenge, I just couldn't get over the timing and the method of revenge. Later we see why the movie creators took the immediate vigilante/savior approach but to me it was a case of trying to be too clever. Every movie has to have a twist. Too often vengeance movies sloppily put it all together. Either the motive for revenge is silly or the person seeking revenge is unlikely or the method of seeking revenge is unrealistic. The motive here was solid but as far as the person and more still the method... really wasn't in the plausibility ballpark. In all cases it detracts from the believability which detracts from the overall movie. This was a "I Spit on Your Grave" type with far less character, style and logic.

This movie is definitely worth a watch, especially for young woman (who are old enough to watch this type of movie) who are targets for this crime. There is a lot of blood and violence and disturbing scenes of abduction, but don't let that stop you from a good story line, well pieced together, and acted well. Tina Ivlev does an excellent job of the girl who gets away and seeks vengeance on behalf of the other girls abducted. She realistically dramatizes a person who has to be tough rather than a super-hero type that just plows through the bad guys. Probably the only issue that I have with the movie is that Richard Tyson, as the abductor, gives up information a little too easily in this movie. Sure, he's being tortured, but there could have been a little more to the script that would explain why he's divulging the information so readily.

There are a couple of movies that tell us, that they start where others end. This is one of the cases where its more than true. You get to see what happens, when a situation sort of gets resolved. Or does it? There is always questions and character motivation might seem flawed here. But it all has an internal logic that works very well for the movie and the viewer too.The suspense is almost killing, but that's how it is supposed to be. At the end there is something that happens, that I guess puts people off (if the initial premise didn't do that already, which you'll either find enticing and good and original or boring and brainless). But if you bear with the movie, it will reward you ...

"Escape is just the beginning"I thought "Reversal" was rather disappointing. This has absolutely nothing to do with horror as a film genre. That it represents the horror of networks where mainly young girls are being abducted and afterwards being abused in an inhuman way, is perfectly clear. The thought that this also occurs in reality, is a repulsive fact which I experience as being horror. "Reversal" (alternative title "Bound to Vengeance") distinguishes itself from other rape / revenge films by omitting the rape part completely. The insinuations are present, but are not explicitly shown. At the beginning you are immediately in the middle of a kind of revenge movie mixed with a heroic rescue mission. But otherwise it's just a soulless story solely made to shock. Showing the atrocities inflicted by individuals to others, merely serves as a way to test our tolerance.The moment a brick hits the face of the sadistic serial rapist Phil (Richard Tyson also known as the drug dealer Cullen Crisp from "Kindergarten Cop"), it means the redemptive end of months (or years) of imprisonment for Eve (Tina Ivlev). An average person would quickly flee and call 911. Except Eve. After finding some Polaroid's (Guess it's the 80's) of other victims, she makes an agreement with the psychopath. He'll show Eve the other locations where the other girls are located. In exchange Eve will drop him off at a hospital, to take care of his battered, bloody face.Tina Ivlev made an impression on me. An acting performance that goes beyond sheer fear and revenge. In a convincing, realistic way she shows how she must choose between self-preservation and self-sacrifice. The transition from victim to executioner occurs without realizing it, and the roles are reversed within the shortest time. Phil is (briefly) reduced to a helpless, pleading heap of misery. Even Richard Tyson delivers a brilliant performance as the maniac doing his weekly round along dilapidated, filthy barely livable shacks where several victims are locked up in chains. But his resilience is superhuman. The manipulative Phil, however, isn't easily beaten up to a jelly and tries to confuse Eve over and over again and tries to trick her into feelings of guilt. He's in any case a creepy guy and you're all the time wondering whether he's the person in charge of the whole operation or as he claimed at the beginning just a messenger boy.I'm not really a fan of exploitation films and I don't necessarily need to see movies as "I spit on your grave". "Reversal" remains a terrible movie to watch, full of disturbing and disgusting images. Despite everything isn't brought explicitly into the picture, one can imagine the miserable conditions and the cruel treatment the victims endured. Unfortunately, this film offers no more than a vague idea about yet another immense organization larger than Eve can apprehend and again the assertion follows that she isn't aware of what she's getting into. Furthermore, it's the umpteenth film with a teenage girl soaked in blood and running around in her underwear.The entire film is a succession of perverse disclosures located at different addresses. It looks like a kind of tourist tour with human madness as a central theme, which ultimately leads to the (really predictable) denouement. Although the story isn't much of a deal and unbelievable at times, somehow it's ominous enough to hold your attention. Unfortunately, the flashbacks about better times and the neon-colored images are tiring after a while, and you long for the showdown to see how it actually runs off for Eve. A film that is recommended only for the real fans of this sub-genre.More reviews here : http://bit.ly/1KIdQMT