105) The Disappearance Of Alice CreedDirector: J BlakesonYear: 2010Plot Summary: Two men fortify a nondescript British apartment so it can serve as a prison and then kidnap a woman and tie her to a bed.
In one of the most haunting and suspenseful scenes to emerge in 2010 so far, this low budget British thriller begins with an entirely wordless sequence of two young men gathering items such as rope and duct tape for a task ahead of them. It immediately draws you in as these characters then prepare a room, bolting a bed to the floor and installing locks on the door, in which some terrible event is about to occur.
This suspense, for most of the first 30 or 40 minutes of The Disappearance Of Alice Creed, is spectacularly maintained despite the fact that all of the action occurs within this one aforementioned room. The audience will be gripped as they ask themselves who the girl is that they have kidnapped, what they aim to do with her and what is in it for these two men. Moreover, through subtle glances Mark Compston makes towards their hostage it's implied that there is more that meets the eye to this situation.
However, many of these mysteries become clear within this first act of the movie and, therefore, for the following hour, The Disappearance Of Alice Creed becomes tiresome and starts to drag. Aside from wanting to know how it all pans out and whether the characters themselves will realise each other's motives, there's not a lot that is really involving about the thriller.
Nevertheless, for such a low budget movie, it's extremely well made with some spectacular camera work throughout. The performances from the three actors in the movie, furthermore, are impossible to fault. Gemme Arterton gives the helpless Alice Creed a lot of sympathy even when most of her lines are muffled from behind a gag placed in her mouth and Eddie Marsan is about as brilliant to watch as he is in anything.
While The Disappearance Of Alice Creed is a well-made thriller that commendably tries to break away from the mould, the lack of punch and the fact that it gives away it's hand in the first 40 minutes means that it's not as good as it should be.
3/5
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