☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Netflix* Synopsis: After their young son is abducted and murdered by a psychopath, a well-heeled couple kidnap the killer and torture him.
The Peeps: Robert Lieberman (director); Marek Posival (writer); Erika Christensen, Jesse Metcalfe, Bill Moseley
Quick Run Down: Well-Directed, Occasionally Vicious, Good Way To Kill A Friday Night
Worth the Watch: Yeah
The Tortured wastes no time. It opens on a hysterical Craig Landry, standing on a bridge in the middle of traffic, screaming into a cell phone that his son has been kidnapped. Then, we move to the Landry home, where the mother - Elise - arrives from work and hears the news. Soon, 'Where's Benjamin Landry?' is the phrase coming from everyone's sob-choked throats. Cut to the home of John Kozlowski, who is sitting in front of a mirror, listening to kid lullabies on record, while little Benji cries for his mommy in the background. Kozlowski is a wacko with a history of dressing up like a little girl and playing daddy and daughter all rolled into one before mutilating kids that's he's abducted. But he doesn't get away with this one, and the police catch him. Accordingly, he stands trial and gets sentenced to 25 to life. This isn't enough for Craig and Elise, though, and they decide to capture Kozlowki from police custody and dish out their own form of justice.
This is a movie that has good to really good parts that help make up for the bad ones. The opening is quick and to the point; the entire first act doesn't beat around the bush; and, once Craig and Elise (Metcalfe and Christensen, respectively) get their hands on Kozlowski (Moseley), there are some good bits about personal justice, torture, and the effects - and maybe morality - of vengeance. The whole film is well directed and well edited, and the music is really good. Jeff Rona, the composer, does some unique things that give the film a heightened sense of tension and mystery. Plus, the film just looks good - some moody use of dark blues and angle shots that keep the film from being exploitative and give it a certain artistic appeal alongside being a torture flick. As for the acting, it's fair enough. Christensen has an annoying voice and her reactions are questionable sometimes, but, in the situation of being a mother whose 6 year old son has been murdered, I can't really say what I would expect her reactions to be. So, she does a decent job. Metcalfe looks mostly constipated through the whole flick, with his dark, bushy brows furrowed low over his eyes, and almost all of his acting is done in an angry, hand-slapping-the desk-or-any-hard-surface-nearby kind of way. He sells his role, though, and keeps us invested. Moseley is his normal, lanky and creepy self with some really good body acting when we get to the torture scenes. In fact, this is probably the best acting of the whole movie and amounts to the best parts too. The thing that makes
The Tortured difficult to really like is the story. There are some pieces - namely, a large chunk of the middle and the very end - that will have people pondering plausibility and considering plot holes. The idea of a young yuppie couple STEALING a child molester from the hands of the authorities is ridiculous, and the way the action transpires in the film requires a lot of writer's privilege and audience suspension of disbelief. It's a horror movie so I'll give you that, but, when considering the ending, well... it's mostly unnecessary, kind of silly, and creates problems within the story. Enough so that, when you start thinking about, you realize that it might be largely ridiculous. But, it's just a small part. If you can get past it, I think you'll like the movie as a whole.
Something that I found myself thinking about as the film went on was - just what are the benefits of vengeance? Isn't it, mostly, just a widening of the rabbit hole of despair created by the initial tragedy? Does anything good come from revenge? These questions are briefly touched on in the latter parts of the film but never addressed. I definitely think the film's approach to these deeper ideas was well-executed but the ending could have been much better and further drove home those said ideas with some kind of highlighting dilemma or final action. Instead, Lieberman (director) and Posival (writer) chose a silly, modern cop-out that detracts from any kind of deeper questioning and, ultimately, the movie as a whole. If it'd been better set up from the beginning of the film, I might have been less critical, but I don't think it works in the way that it's finally delivered.
So, if you wanna see a well put together movie with some questionable actions in the middle and an unnecessary ending, check out The Tortured. It'd be a good way to kill a Friday night. If you don't believe me, look at it for yourself. It's on Netflix!
"How do you derive pleasure from other people's pain?"
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