Review: Captive

The faith-tinged true crime drama, Captive, functions less like a film and more of an advertisement for the book on which it was based, Unlikely Angel by Ashley Smith, and, more importantly, Rick Warren's best-selling The Purpose Driven Life. Stars David Oyelowo and Kate Mara deliver sold, sometimes excellent, work but can't detract viewers from Captive's Lifetime TV movie trappings.

Smith (Mara) is a single mother struggling to overcome her meth addiction in order to regain custody of her young daughter, who is currently living with Smith's aunt (Mimi Rogers). Given Warren's book at a Celebrate Recovery meeting, she immediately disposes of it but it winds its way back into her possession.

Brian Nichols (Oyelowo) is a former college football player with a degree in economics who once had two good jobs. Now facing 25 years in prison for the rape, kidnapping and assault of his longtime girlfriend, he manages to shoot his way out of a courtroom, leaving three dead bodies and one severely injured individual in his wake. A citywide manhunt, led by Detectives John Chestnut and Carmen Sanchez (Michael K. Williams and Leonor Varela), is in full effect for this "killer with no conscience," as one news reporter describes Nichols.

Smith and Nichols cross paths when she makes the fateful decision to fetch cigarettes from her car in the middle of the night as he is slowly driving past her house. Nichols holds Smith hostage in her home for the next seven hours, during which time they eventually let their guards down, reveal personal failures and regrets, and come to something resembling understanding.

It is also during this tense period that Nichols offhandedly asks Smith to read from Warren's book, the words of which trigger a spiritual re-awakening for both parties. The film is admirable in the subtlety of its proselytising, but its restraint is also a drawback. Warren's words are tossed into the mix, yet are given no import, a curious decision considering they allegedly had so meaningful an impact on Nichols that he ultimately did the right thing, releasing Smith and surrendering himself to the police.

For all its chatter about life having meaning and finding one's purpose, the film itself feels devoid of direction and intent. It's competently put together by veteran director Jerry Jameson, but its uninspired aura and somewhat incomplete narrative makes it difficult to elicit any emotional investment on the audience's part. It helps to have Oyelowo and Mara on board, though both deserve infinitely better material. Nevertheless, both actors are persuasive even when their characters' motivations are not. Oyelowo, in particular, convinces as the paranoid desperado who genuinely believes he is innocent of any wrongdoing.

Captive

Directed by: Jerry Jameson

Written by: Brian Bird; based on Unlikely Angel by Ashley Smith

Starring: David Oyelowo, Kate Mara, Michael K. Williams, Leonor Varela, Mimi Rogers, Jessica Oyelowo