The Disappearance Of Alice Creed Review

You really do want to give British films a chance. Especially when it’s a stripped down thriller like The Disappearance Of Alice Creed and particularly when it’s generating half decent reviews (Mark Kermode, Empire) but guess what? Is this the most singularly negative film review blog in the history of film review blogs? Do I like anything I see at the cinema? I don’t think I can actually face writing yet another protracted negative review so here’s the cut and thrust:

Vic (Eddie Marsan) and Danny (Martin Compston) kidnap Alice (Gemma Arterton) for a million quid. We watch them meticulously prepare the kidnapping and snatch Alice and keep her shackled to a bed. For the next ninety minutes the power shifts between the three as secrets are outed, relationships revealed, twists and turns occur with glee abandon and, in that long tradition of movie crime, nothing goes according to plan.

I went in to Alice Creed knowing next to nothing about it and, for anyone interested in seeing it, I would advise you to do the same. My problems are that I found the characters very difficult to like and sympathise with (even the eponymous kidnap victim) many of the twists I simply found unbelievable (one in particular: for anyone who has read this blog before, you’ll know it when you see it) and much of the film followed the same formula which is that character A leaves the flat leaving characters B and C to fight/argue/whatever but, uh oh, character A is coming back… I understand that this is a product of the set up and to a degree is unavoidable but that doesn’t stop the film feeling repetitive. Also my flatmate made the good point that much of the film inadvertently ends up being about characters asking each other for the keys to the handcuffs. Seriously, you could make a new drinking game out of the amount of times someone says “Give me the keys.”

It’s not terrible I guess but I was never on the edge of my seat, there were about three too many twists, it could easily be 15 minutes shorter and much of the writing and acting is less than convincing. Though kudos to Martin Compston for being quite good looking. It’s trying to do something interesting and character led (with only 3 characters onscreen) and deserves credit for that but in the end it wasn’t for me.

4.5/10