Secuestro Express (2005)

If you want to know how we live, what our fears are, what can happen to ANYONE that goes out on the streets, this movie is a must see. And for those who say it's unrealistic I'll just tell you this: EVERYBODY that lives in caracas has a close friend or family that has been mugged, kidnapped or ruffied.True story.For those that say actors don't play well: Those guys are known Venezuelian singers and come from a very poor background. They know the life, they have lived it, they surely have never kidnapped everyone but in an environment where growing older than 25 years old is considered lucky, they have seen and done their fair share of violence.Little side note, this movie was supposed to be presented at the Oscars for the Best foreign movie. The only reason it wasn't even presented to voting is because the Venezuelian Government REFUSED to purpose it to the Oscars for the simple reason that those singers are against the so called "revolution" and that it draws a picture of Venezuelian's life that they didn't want known around the world at that time :).

First of all, aside from the female protagonist, there is not a single character in this movie who's likable. They're all irritating, violent and psychotic scum of low intelligence who are introduced in cliché freeze frames with short descriptions ("rapist, sentimental father"). The movie makes a half-hearted attempt to give the characters some humanity or depth, such as by depicting the movie's would-be rapist as a "sentimental father" who likes painting. Yes, well, Hitler was an artist too, but that didn't exactly redeem him, now did it? You see, these characters are violent psychos because they're poor and because some people are not. The movie asserts that being rich is a sin, rich people deserve to get kidnapped and murdered and that poor people (except, of course, that these characters aren't really poor, because kidnapping is a profitable business) get an automatic right to do whatever they think is necessary, or unnecessary. The characters in the movie keep talking about poverty and injustice as if they actually cared about any of it.This movie has to be as leftist and liberal as it can possibly get. It's sickening. As far as I can tell, Latin America is screwed up partly because their entire culture is screwed up. Has Europe or the US gone through similar problems due to poverty, or war? No. As far as I know, neither has Asia. Why can't Latin America gets its act together? Poverty is clearly being used as an excuse here, to justify the thuggish behavior of the characters. But thanks to our new religion of cultural relativity, there are no good or bad cultures, only different ones, so clearly we must blame poverty. Whatever.The plot is non-existent, there's no action, every event seems like a pointless non-sequitur, a lot of the dialogue is just incoherent shouting and babbling, the violence is pointless... ugh. There's nothing particularly clever about the direction either, pretty standard post-Tarantino fare. In short, there's no reason to see this movie for any reason.

As you well know, "Secuestro express" is the first Venezuelan movie to be distributed internationally, and the fact is that even so Miramax had not bought the rights of the movie, likewise it had been a success... is verified that to all of us, be Venezuelans or not, we they like the true histories, without fiction neither nothing, that show more the misery of our countries, and that better shown of the life in Caracas that shows "Secuestro express".It can show what we have lived the Venezuelans in this despotic government of Chávez, How? Showing all the TOTALLY TRUE scenes of the events occurred from April of 2002, like the Massacre of "Puente Llaguno" or "Llaguno Bridge", the gunmen and many other facts of great importance in the political-social life of the country. And to think that these shameless murderers, right now they are advanced to be councilmen, and they can be elected as mayors. (Oh my gosh, in what kind of country do we live?) We also can see the effect of prostitution, transvestism, "matraca" or "Policial corruption", the intense depiction of drug addiction in our society, the extreme poverty, the murders, etc. All in the movie works too well."Secuestro express" is a masterpiece, and not only I say as Venezuelan, as critician too, the special effects with the DV cameras it really throw us to an exciting movie and I can see many times without getting tired of it.So, to the world, Venezuela is a truthfully country, very rich, but as you well know, with presidents as Chavez, we are screwed up and we're converted in a "País tercermundista". CHAVEZ OUT ON December 3!

"Secuestro Express" is an independent film about a common frequent reality in Latin America: Kidnappings. I was first very reluctant about watching this film, but it just came on DVD rental, so I got a copy, watched it and now I know that certainly this film is a very genuine depiction of a situation that is not known to most people in North America. Quite raw, and also entertaining, this film will keep the viewer in suspense and expectation for many surprises.Remember that this is a foreign film, not your regular "censored a... flick". That is the reason it was not shown in most theaters in the U.S. but it is now at your local DVD rental shop.Well, please let me know what ya'll think!http://www.miramax.com/secuestroexpresshttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0371939 All Block Busters has it.