Review of Chained (2012) by The Movie W — 05 Nov 2012

With this being her third film in roughly as many years, Lynch seems to have fully recovered from the battering she took over her 1993 debut "Boxing Helena". Her films certainly aren't to everyone's taste but they're never less than interesting. "Chained" lives up to the promise shown in "Surveillance" and is her most accomplished work to date.

D'Onofrio has long been a favorite of mine and here he finally gets the lead role he deserves, a taxi driver who conveniently uses his profession to kidnap and murder young women. When he picks up Ormond and her young son, he kills the mother and decides to keep the boy as a slave. Years have passed and the boy is now a teenager (Farren) and has succumbed to Stockholm Syndrome. Feeling sympathetic, D'Onofrio decides it's time he let his captive out into the world but can only do this by forcing Farren to become a killer too.

Lynch creates a claustrophobic atmosphere and Shane Daly's impressive cinematography is reminiscent of Fincher. Despite the bleakness, there are moments of black humor, particularly a game of Top Trumps played with the driver's licences of D'Onofrio's victims. Much of Lynch's good work however is undone by an absurd final twist which the director claims was a creative decision forced on her. Lynch has most definitely stepped out of her father's shadow at this point and is now a film-maker worth keeping an eye on.