User reviews

Anne Sluti (Sara Canning) is a 17 year old girl in Nebraska who gets kidnapped by a crazy Tony Zappa (James Van Der Beek). LeVar Burton plays police detective Mike Timbrook.

It's a slow moving Lifetime movie. The kidnapping is compelling but the story just drags along for far too long. There isn't enough depth in the story. James Van Der Beek isn't menacing enough. He just doesn't act crazy well. Maybe the investigation shouldn't be half the movie. Maybe if this was a tough character study of Zappa. Maybe it should be just a two person play. Maybe if the production value was more than the standard TV movie.

Taking James van der Beek who generally is playing nice guys and making him into this despicable example of a human being ... I mean that is some achievement. From him too of course - he is playing that part of course and he really does more than a nice job with it.

Kidnappings are evil - and having the movie tell you that this actually happened ... I can't tell how anyone who decides watching this might feel about it. Now certain things may be predictable and others may seem cliche - but overall the movie tries to make you feel as uncomfortable as possible .. and it achieves just that. It does feel like a TV drama/movie of the week in certain aspects too though, which may not feel like this is something you need to see ... watch the trailer and decide for yourself then.

There are very few redeeming points in this 'made for T.V' drama about a high school senior who was kidnapped from a parking lot in Nebraska back in 2001.

Although the topic of this film is a fairly serious one, it is a huge disappointment in terms of writing, direction and acting. The movie starts out as a teenage high school drama, and ever so slowly and painfully gets worse and worse as it goes along. The dialogue is unbelievably and at best, poorly delivered. The most intense scene was a mind boggling cluster of bad lines, and inane acting, that it ruins any drama that should have been part of such a horrendous act.

Every part of this movie dissolves into your typical 'straight to video' movie.

2/10

I don't want to sound like an amateur film critic like most of the above, so I'll just say that this film is god-awful, with weak, unconvincing performances all round (particularly the captor). It's like watching a long-winded reconstruction on a crime phone-in show. Avoid at all costs. Clean the oven or something. Dear o dear. There really isn't anything else I can add. I could try but I'd just be waffling. OK, OK, Sarah Canning is half decent I suppose. But it ends there. It really does. Maybe give the oven a miss. wipe the tops of the cupboards or something. Or maybe watch another film altogether if you're that desperate. It really is bad.

To have something so harrowing portrayed by such terrible acting is a crime.

I watched this to find out how a human being over comes such a situation but instead I watched actors and actresses fight with a maimed script which was followed by terrible acting. Don't watch this film you will regret it.

The best performance came from the lead girl.

The rest of the cast including vanderbeak were crying awful.

How this makes the family feel I have no idea to have this straight to video rubbish appear on TV representing you.

...but as a movie, it's simply far too long.

The "Plot" section above tells you _everything_ there is about this movie.

The acting is neither very good nor particularly believable. You can tell it is a true story because no script writer would write something with so much filler where absolutely nothing happens. Even a bad scriptwriter would write something to fill the time.

It's a compelling story and I watched it far longer than I normally would have watched something of this calibre, but I ultimately had to turn it off to keep from yelling at the TV, "For $%^&^ sakes, DO something!"

Poorly acted abduction compared to other kidnapping films. Was just constantly waiting for the film to end.

A lot of the reviews are moderately negative. I would have to agree to some extent with them. eg - it may be a run of the mill kidnap film. But for me James van der beek made this film very watchable indeed. I've grown up in the generation of Dawson's creek, so that was all i've really seen him in. Except from another good turn in The Rules Of Attraction. His performance in this was outstanding. What i consider a fairly realistic interpretation of a sociopath/kidnapper. But how do i know whats realistic for that character? LOL. Give this film a watch, it may have been done before, but van der beek makes the difference between bad and good in my opinion. 8/10.

The acting is quite superb, when it comes to the two main characters ... unfortunately, the movie will most likely hinder James Van Der Beek's career ... much like Sleepers and Hallow Man marred Kevin Bacon's career. The public glorifies its heroes, but once that hero joins the dark side ... the public moves on, in search of a new hero. Actors need to be a lot more careful in the roles they choose, because the remainder of their careers depend on the choices they make! There are far too many victims in America ... portray a predator in one of these type movies and you lose a whole slew of fans ... specially if you portray more than one! Believe this, playing Ted Bundy did nothing positive for Mark Harmon's career.

Both leads are extremely powerful as portrayed by Sarah Canning & James Van Der Beek ... I was very surprised to find that LeVar Burton, from Star Trek NG, played the part of Mike Timbrook. LeVar looked so different, I did not recognize him ... but his acting was spot on!