Caught (1987)

Please don't spend money on this.

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Some of the reviews seem unaware that this is a true story based on real people. I went to school with one of the main characters and, the other lived in my home town. Thus, this Christian film is aware of the cultures foreign to Christianity exhibited in the film because it is a true story. Note this story happened in the 70's, so for many it may seem out of place in today's culture. This movie has a merger of three cultures, the United States, Amsterdam, and India. It also has a merger of non-Christian and Christian cultures, including the conflict between them.

I enjoyed this because it is homo-erotic. The star, John Shepherd, is very attractive and is scantily clad in much of the movie. And besides he hustles, picks up men and has sex with them for money. After all these years of watching the Evangelical scandals play out, you wonder about the real reason that the evangelist is showing so much interest in the new convert, inviting him to share his room, and so forth. In the end, though, he is not a Ted Haggard type with an ulterior motive, but a true believer who gradually persuades Tim, the John Shepherd character to be converted. It is not a movie that you can take seriously because credibility is stretched past the breaking point. However, it was a fun movie to watch and I would like to see it again. I doubt that it is going to win many converts to Billy Graham Religion which is of course the reason for the production.

With the money they take in, the Billy Graham Ministry under the banner of Worldwide Pictures should be able to produce a film with better production values than some of the religious films I've seen. That in fact they did in the film Caught. Would that the story and direction and acting matched the technical stuff.The film was made to take advantage of the International Conference of Itinerant Evangelists taking place in Amsterdam which among others featured Billy Graham. Graham himself is seen in sermons before the conference woven into the plot of the film.Which centers on two people, American kid John Shepherd and Indian Amerjie Deu. Amerjie is in Amsterdam for the conference, but Shepherd came there trying to find his birth father. Seems he just learned that he was an out of wedlock child to Jill Ireland when she was living with a Dutch student during the hippie sixties. The knowledge has given him an attack of teenage angst.Of course when in the Netherlands that notorious sin center of Europe he falls prey to all kinds of temptation and winds up selling drugs and selling himself in Amsterdam. But in a series of incredibly coincidental meetings with Deu, Shepherd reevaluates his life and since this is a Christian evangelical film, you know what that means.Which brings me to an interesting observation. Whoever wrote and researched the film must have had a knowledge of homo-erotica and fetishism that's not usually learned in bible college. I also wonder how a Christian filmmaker managed to learn about Amsterdam's notorious spot for rent boys.Of course it's made abundantly clear that Shepherd is gay for pay. Note that none of the other really gay kids out street hustling is even attempted to be evangelized. The producers knew well to stay away from that topic. Caught will never exactly be a prime candidate for any film honors. Still it's a curious work considering who produced it.

I recently had the dubious honour to make Dutch subtitles for this film with a view to a television broadcast in Holland. Although I was initially appalled by the poor writing, acting, direction and just about everything of this piece of evangelical cinema, I decided to make the best of it and enjoy myself. I laughed my head off.The story concerns an American young man, Tim, who freaks out when he discovers he was sired by a Dutchman instead of the man in the photograph his mother had put in a frame, and which had been his solace during his childhood. Using his high school graduation money, he travels to Amsterdam. He has fallen prey to pimps and/or drug pushers by the time the movie opens. His search for his dad having floundered, he finds himself hustling, prostituting himself and robbing American tourists. While he is sinking into a moral quagmire, a conference of travelling evangelists is being held at the RAI conference centre. Raj from India, speaking idiosyncratic Indian English, and Abraham from Nigeria, who speaks some sort of pidgin English, end up sharing a room.On his way to the conference, Raj encounters Tim at the Leidseplein. Tim begs for money, allegedly to get some breakfast. Well intentioned and unflappably optimist Raj religiously resolves to return there later with food for this unfortunate American boy and does indeed collect some during the conference lunch. From there on, the film turns around Tim's descent into moral depravity and his repeated and increasingly improbable meetings with Raj, who gives him food and lodging at his hotel, helps him kick his drug habit cold turkey, kicks the bad guys like a regular action hero and even hooks Tim up with his natural father, a kind veterinarian. Oh, and I forgot to tell you that he gradually converts Timothy, as he calls him, to Christianity in the process. The religiously inspired optimism and naivety of this weird Good Samaritan character, who follows his dear Timothy around like a happy puppy, is a marvel to behold, while his attempts at comedy fat flat on their face and become unintentionally hilarious.Having lived in Amsterdam for some 17 years, I naturally enjoyed observing the geographically impossible moves of the characters around the city. However, the real delight of this picture was the psychologically improbable and poorly motivated behaviour of the characters within this cityscape. On top of this, some of the Dutch B list actors in supporting roles do their utmost to prove how bad they are at their job.I would recommend this film to viewers of all religious or non religious persuasions, provided they have a sense of humour. However, it does offer specials delights to Dutch viewers, as they can spot Peter Blok, who went on to bigger and better things, in a tiny part, watch Hans Kemna demonstrate why he did well to stop acting and become a casting director, and hear eternal supporting actor Frederik de Groot as Jaques the pimp pronouncing the word Rembrandtsplein in English with a weird French accent, while pronouncing his lines in Dutch like any other native. When he is in a homicidal mood, his voice is dubbed by a British actor, which to me at least suggests some kind of demonic or thespian possession.If you ever get the chance to see this, don't pass it up.