Trapped (2002)

When their daughter is abducted and taken for ransom by a gang of serial kidnappers, a young doctor and his wife find themselves held hostage while a 24-hour plan to extort their money is set into motion. Now, with time running out and the health of their asthmatic daughter at serious risk, they find themselves in a life-and-death race against the clock as the "perfect crime" begins spiraling towards an unthinkable, terrifying and deadly conclusion.
 


Editor's Note

Combine the emotional weight of a tearjerker with a classic kidnapping nail-biter and you get the impressive results of TRAPPED. Director Luis Mandoki (ANGEL EYES) knows that it can't hurt to pull a few heartstrings to keep an audience firmly planted on the edge of their seats. From the beginning, this picture-perfect family unit oozes with sick foreboding: a glowing young mom (Charlize Theron) and towheaded daughter (Dakota Fanning) bid farewell to Dad (Stuart Townsend), a successful physician, who's on his way to a lecture. Dad no sooner boards his commuter seaplane (which he pilots himself) than all three are separately taken hostage by sophisticated kidnappers (Kevin Bacon, Courtney Love, and Pruitt Taylor Vince), throwing their idyllic family life into jeopardy. TRAPPED pushes the envelope of the classic kidnapping story because director Mandoki takes full advantage of the parent-child bond to heighten the sense of pathos and urgency. This approach paves the way for some phenomenal performances. Theron offers a tearful depiction of a desperate mother, Fanning is chilling when she realizes that she is in captivity, and Vince gives an inspired performance as the conflicted kidnapper who hates his job.