Film Review

Secuestro Express is an intense thriller set in Carracas Venezuela, a city where poverty, crime, and immense wealth have created a climate of violence and desperation. Kidnappings are so commonplace they have become a regular part of daily life for many of the cities inhabitants. "Express" kidnappings, where people are taken for a few hours and small amounts of money are the topic of this film. In look and style it feels like a cross between City of God and Lock, Stock and Two-Smoking Barrels--cool music, loads of jump cuts and fast-forward camera use.

The film is basically about a kidnapping that goes slightly wrong. The criminals take two distinct emotional directions throughout the course of the film--most of them towards an even hardened and cold position, but a couple of them wind up much more conflicted about their lives of crime after the events that unfold in one night. Actress Mia Maestro stars as the female kidnap victim who must remain calm and keep her wits about her. What complicates this film is the fact that kidnap victims are increasingly middle-class, not so far removed from the slum-living criminals and this provides the central moral core of the story. When you find yourself on the wrong side of the tracks do you use violence and crime or hard-work and wits to get out of your circumstances?

Writer/Director Jonathan Jakubowicz (only 26!) has crafted a cool-looking and pretty compelling tale that keeps you concentrating on the screen. The film is well cast and you will find yourself identifying with the petty criminals who fill his tale. This year's City of God? maybe maybe not, but definitely worth paying to see.