Review of Secuestro Express (2004) by Ld P — 25 Nov 2009

Secuestro Express (2004) "Kidnapping Express," the title refers to a thriving but deadly abduction business to which many poverty-stricken Latin Americans have turned as a means to secure quick cash.

. Set over a period of about 10 hours in Venezuela's capital, Caracas, the movie is relentlessly sweaty, menacing and violent. In a night pregnant with a strange mix of tension and dizzy abandon, lovers Carla and Martin prowl clubs before drunkenly wandering back to his car.

While he comes across as crass nouveau riche, she appears more liberal. Their conspicuous affluence, however, makes them ideal targets for kidnappers, and the trio of Trece, Budu and Niga gets a bead on them and promptly sweeps them up at gunpoint.

The kidnappers then demand $20,000 to be delivered in two hours. Carla phones her rich father Sergio to procure the money, but chaos soon ensues. A botched ATM robbery is followed by a stopover at the palatial estate of a gay drug dealer.

For these ghetto residents, this is a class war in which the rich must pay for their selfishness and lack of charity. The film, written and directed by Jonathan Jakubowicz and shot on digital video, uses a variety of horribly non effective cinematic gimmicks.

extreme close-ups, superfast zooms. jarring speeded-up and slow-motion scenes. Drug usage constantly. Split-screen segments, here cleverly horribly bore us with the simultaneous actions of people located in setting of the car.

More exploitation than expose, Secuestro Express is a crass kidnap thriller that turns a social problem into an excuse for sleazy spectacle. The film seems less interested in dramatizing the inequities of that Venezuela but rather giving us up hefty doses of sadism and titillation.

The film is the worst advert ever for the Venezuelan tourist board. This terrible film depicts a nation up to its neck in drugs, violence and corruption. Secuestro Express doesn't go much further than spitting out character types (poor little rich girl, thief with heart of gold) and reminding us of Caracas's class differences.

The late-night abduction by three scumbags becomes an 88-minute ordeal for the audience. It is a great critique about the divide between rich and poor in Latin America. In other words, capitalism's to blame for these everyday kidnappings.

Secuesto Express is not an easy film to watch with its eruptions of violence and venom. This grim tone means Secuestro Express won't appeal many, but this film isn't supposed to make anyone comfortable - it works as much as an expose of these shocking everyday kidnappings and the socio-political reasons why they happen as it does a piece of standalone storytelling.

That, in itself, does not a good movie make. This film fails on almost every level. The jumpy hand-held photography only caused me a headache. Secuestro Express is just as disturbing as its producers' past films - Sin City and Once Upon a Time in Mexico.

But while these films inundate viewers with elaborate gun battles and excessive gore, Secuestro Express is intense in its suggested violence . Boring cliched movie 2 stars or less not recommended.