(SOME SPOILERS) True story of a vicious kidnapping of a couple and their infant daughter by two on the run drug addicted psycho's. Moving to the quaint and picturesque little town of Yachats Oragon the Plunks, Paul & Kathy, expected to get away from the big city crime that they just left in Tucson Arizona only to find out that no place is safe in the country and learning it the hard way.
Opening a motel the very first customers Jeff Frost & Robert Knotts, who had just pistol whipped and carjacked an elderly couple, rob the place and hold Kathy and her baby daughter Katie hostage until Paul shows up taking him hostage as well. Needing cash the two criminals have Kathy go down to the local town bank to withdraw $9,000.00 from her, and Paul's, bank account. With that done Knotts decides to take the entire Plunk family along with him as his partner Frost, across the Oragon/Washington border. It turns out to be a crazy ride to nowhere ending in a wild shootout with the police.
The movie "Captive" focus more on the aftermath of the Plunk's kidnapping then the kidnapping itself and how it effected the two crime victims, as well as little Katie. Paul had to suffer the humiliation of having his wife raped before his eyes, with little Katie on the scene, and being unable to do anything to stop it. Kathy for her part felt guilty for being concerned and sympathetic, shades of the Stockholm Syndrome,for one of her kidnappers, Jeff, who ended up getting killed in a police shoot out. This while and his partner Knotts kidnapped two more innocent motorists.
Kathy is also later counseled by police trauma expert Karen in getting over the fact that she may have caught Aids from being raped by the two drug addicted thugs as well as being impregnated by them, she didn't and she wasn't. Jeff for his part wasn't as "innocent" as Kathy may have thought at first with him, like Knotts, raping her right in front of her husband and little Katie.
The last twenty or so minutes of the movie "Captive" had to do with the Plunk's trying to get their lives back together, that was shattered by their experience with the two kidnappers. That was more painful for them then the kidnapping and the brutality, Paul was also thrown out of his van and left to freeze to death,they suffered at the hands of Frost & Knotts.
The movie ends on a comical note with Knotts' lawyer wanting the Plunk's to be a character witness for him at his upcoming trial. When holding the Plunk's captive Paul & Kathy promised Knotts that they'll give him a job as night clerk at their motel in order to humor him. It was that absurd suggestion that broke the ice and had the Plunk's, Paul & Kathy, realize that they had to put what happened to them, at the hands of Knotts & Frost, behind them once and for all and get back to a normal life.
A bit uneven but still penetrating movie about crime and the effect it has on people who were traumatized by it long after it's over.
