------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overall Rating : 5.5/10
Directed By : Amanda Gusack
Melissa George (The Amityville Horror (2005) )
Oded Fehr (The Mummy Returns)
Christian Campbell (Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical)
Supplied By : Fox Home Video
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : June. 30, 2009
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| PLOT Waking up in a dark room after being knocked unconscious in a car accident and her young son nowhere in sight, Jamie Taylor, realizes that she has been kidnapped. Her masked captor informs her that if she ever hopes to see her son alive again, she must help his mysterious employers. However, they’re not looking to collect a ransom; instead, the man reveals that Jamie’s husband is secretly a brutal killer who recently stole millions from his bosses. The organization will stop at nothing to retrieve the missing money, and they think that their captive is the one person who can help them find it. Chained to a grate in a cold, dark room, with her marriage upended, her son’s life in jeopardy and no idea who she can trust, Jamie must attempt to piece together clues from the life she thought she knew in order to escape this nightmare and save the lives of her beloved family. |
||||
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||||
| THE REVIEW In THE BETRAYED a young mother named Jamie Taylor awakens in an an old warehouse, and all she remembers is a car accident, with her ribs bruised, she has no idea how she arrived at the warehouse or why. With her son also missing it seems as if she has been abducted and indeed that's true - her captors are a few henchmen who are lead by a man dressed in all black, who is wearing a matching black mask to hide his identity. The masked man informs Jamie that the reason she has been captured is that her husband Kevin owes him some money, as he goes on to explain that Kevin hasn't been truthful and for years he has been working in cooperation with the men smuggling heroin. With 40 million dollars being the amount in question, the captor, whose name is Alek, believes that Jamie can provide some answers as to it's whereabouts. And if Jamie is unable to provide what he wants within a certain time period, he promises to kill Jamie, as well as her son Michael. Equipped with a tape recorder and tapes of recordings obtained from the captors bugging the Taylor's house, Jamie must decipher them in hopes of unlocking clues leading to the bounty. The plot behind THE BETRAYED is nothing new, a woman mysteriously wakes up in a room, not knowing how she got there or why. In recent years, this type of film has been some kind of staple with film. With films such as CELLULAR, CAPTIVITY or even hits like SAW, the motive and setup is usually similar - the captive person is being held by someone who is holding something over the victims head and whats something from them. In the case of THE BETRAYED, we have a character in Jamie who has no clue as to why she has been abducted along with her young son Michael, but as one of her captors(who wears a mask to conceal his face) explains to her, it turns out that her husband may not be who she thought he was. She is told that all throughout their marriage that Kevin has been an International heroin smuggler and has worked along side the captors for a person named Falco. The main captor Alek says that Kevin owes him some 40 million that he stole from the crime operation the two work for. The suspense element comes by way of the abductors being convinced that Jamie can provide them with answers as to where the money is located, and if she does not, they vow to kill her and her son. The film virtually takes place mostly in one location and plays out as a semi slow crime caper mystery, that is essentially much like a jig-saw puzzle with key parts of the solution revealing themselves through clues unscrambled by Jamie via the tapes provided to her and her own memories. The reason to keep watching THE BETRAYED up into the very end is obviously to find our how it all ends(which happens to be the ever so predicted twist), but other than that the plot, for me at least runs a little too slowly, it doesn't help much that all of the occurrences within the film are quite routine. As with most of these films we have a strong willed hero or heroine here who is being held captive by the hardest of criminals, are so we think from the beginning. It isn't long before Alek and his goons start to soften due to Jamie's innocent charm, especially Alek. With this said, I felt that when Alek begins to grow "sympathetic" for Jamie, he kind of loses his edge, thus the danger Jamie is supposed to be in becomes less potent, not to mention that this happens way too early in the film. Directed by filmmaker Amanda Gusack, whom I know from back when I reviewed her great little indie feature, IN MEMORIUM some time ago, still shows here that she has the talent to stick around for awhile however. Her film IN MEMORIUM still has yet to be released and being honest i'll admit that I was truly surprised when I saw her name listed on IMDb as the film's Director, but that's not to say that she doesn't deserve the step up. Gusack does have talent as a filmmaker and it woyld be hard not to notice if you have seen the aforementioned IN MEMORIUM, having her first DVD released by such a company like FOX is a real testament to her talent. Melissa George gives a fairly good performance as you get the sense that she is a mother who will stop at nothing to ensure the safety of her and her son. Her performance is realistic to the point that she will most likely have you routing for her by film's end. On the other hand, I wasn't as impressed with Oded Fehr as the villain, but that's actually not necessarily his fault as It's in the way the script was written. Overall, I thought that THE BETRAYED was a passable thriller that treads in familiar territory, and could be considered routine for a film of it's type. |
||||
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||||
| GORE
METER 3/10 A few bloody gunshot wounds, |
||||
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||||
|
MUSICAL
SCORE 4/10 The score consists of both uptempo and low orchestration, it's decent but not anything different. | ||||
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||||
| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM When it comes to THE BETRAYED, you have seen this type of film before - you kind of already know the outcome from the beginning, but you hang in there until the end. Honestly I don't think that this one will be one to warrant multiple viewing, but it's worth at least a rental, however, I would still like to see Gusack try hand at another Horror film! |
||||
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||||
| STILLS | ||||
|
