Secuestro Express (2005)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Don't Believe the Hype

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Okay. We know that crimes like kidnapping and police corruption are common enough in some countries, but can we separate this particular piece of expository trash from the subject it deals with? It's a terrible movie in almost all respects. It's one of the ugliest movies ever made.The self righteousness of the writer/director, Jonathan Jakubowicz, spills out of every frame. Lord, how I hate being preached to, as if were some idiot desperately in need of enlightenment from some ambitious and complacent sage who believes he has all the answers. The epilogue spells it out, in case we missed it during the preceding hour and a half of pain. "The world is divided into halves -- the starving and the obese. And all we can do is take his food or invite him to the feast." Some sort of epigrammatic drivel like that.The message, I suppose, is that the poor are driven to crime out of desperation but Jakubowicz bungles even that. What we're left with is the conviction that everyone is rotten to the core -- rich and poor alike. So much for philosophy.As a director, Jakubowicz is right up there in the first rank of the fifth rate. Some comments, I notice, have blamed Quentin Tarantino for the style but that's misguided. Tarantino was an original in his first movies. I think Jakubowicz has borrowed heavily from Tarantino but he goes farther back than that for his technique -- back to MTV and ten-second television commercials. I counted four shots in which the camera did not move and the shot lasted one second or longer, then I got tired of waiting for the next one and stopped counting. The camera whirls dizzylingly, there are split-second close ups of eyeballs, ears, and gun muzzles. There are split screens. Sometimes the camera is strapped to the subject's chest. We see step motion and whiz bang pans. Fish-eye lenses turn the faces of people into those of porpoises. Unbearable.That's Jakubowicz the director. Then there is Jakubowicz the writer. The second is no improvement over the first. A gang of hoods kidnaps a rich young couple -- Maestro and Leroux -- and makes off with them, demanding a ransom. They taunt their captives. They pistol whip Leroux, call him names, punch his face repeatedly, while they cackle like maniacs. They argue and shout constantly at each other. They shoot for no reason at a couple of whores standing on the street. They relentlessly fog the air with the foulest of curses.And their captives? They may be rich young sophisticates but they're dopers too. Leroux turns out to be bisexual, much to the disgust of his fiancée. After she discovers this, Maestro, still held captive in the speeding car, begins to ridicule Leroux too. She asks if they have any grass for her to smoke and shares her Ecstasy with them. At times she joins in the insults of the gang and giggles along with them, although one or two cocked pistols are never more than a foot away from her beautiful nose. The police are easily bribed and the federal cops are sadistic rapists.There's no balance to the movie. Maestro is gorgeous but shallow. Leroux is a handsome coward. The quartet of sweaty gangsters has a collective intelligence equal to that of a doorknob. There's no one to root for.It isn't that the brutality, corruption, and crime are objectionable in themselves, nor is the lousy picture the film gives us of a city -- in this case Caracas, Venezuela. But similar subjects have been handled before, and exponentially better, in movies like "Serpico" or "Taxi Driver" or "Los Olvidados." This dumpster full of basura isn't worth any more comment. See it only if you really want a reason to hang yourself.

Secuestro Express is a great movie, no doubt about it, but why does Hollywood has to be so DUMB??... When you see the trailers you expect no more than a action movie...but for those who live in Venezuela ( as myself) there's nothing of action o fiction in this movie, what you see there is the sad but true life that we live here in Caracas, every day when you're walking down the street, when you're driving you're car, when you're at home, you're always thinking, am i going to be next? why is the police stealing people? why are those gangsters ( malandros) looking at me that way? YES here in VEnezuela having something is a crime, it doesn't matter if you worked for it, if you have something that others don't you're a possible victim of crime. TO not make it so much of a complain about Venezuela but about the way the film was turned, I would like to say, this movie may be "fiction"cause its was taken in an controlled environment, but what you see in that movie happens everyday, its not something COOL, or JUST "bang bang" its a reality for all those who live here, it would be great if people saw that and not just ohhh cool another action movie...

As you well know, "Secuestro express" is the first Venezuelan movie to be distributed internationally, and the fact is that even so Miramax had not bought the rights of the movie, likewise it had been a success... is verified that to all of us, be Venezuelans or not, we they like the true histories, without fiction neither nothing, that show more the misery of our countries, and that better shown of the life in Caracas that shows "Secuestro express".It can show what we have lived the Venezuelans in this despotic government of Chávez, How? Showing all the TOTALLY TRUE scenes of the events occurred from April of 2002, like the Massacre of "Puente Llaguno" or "Llaguno Bridge", the gunmen and many other facts of great importance in the political-social life of the country. And to think that these shameless murderers, right now they are advanced to be councilmen, and they can be elected as mayors. (Oh my gosh, in what kind of country do we live?) We also can see the effect of prostitution, transvestism, "matraca" or "Policial corruption", the intense depiction of drug addiction in our society, the extreme poverty, the murders, etc. All in the movie works too well."Secuestro express" is a masterpiece, and not only I say as Venezuelan, as critician too, the special effects with the DV cameras it really throw us to an exciting movie and I can see many times without getting tired of it.So, to the world, Venezuela is a truthfully country, very rich, but as you well know, with presidents as Chavez, we are screwed up and we're converted in a "País tercermundista". CHAVEZ OUT ON December 3!

Probably Jakubowicz is the start of a new wave of filmmakers long time needed in Venezuelan Cinema.This movie has a new kind of approach in every aspect: production, direction, screen writing, marketing, etc. Even when it deals with really tough issues of our society, it's something we venezuelans can be proud of.Finally something the new audiences can relate to, instead of dreadful films by Chalbaud and Azpúrua, the responsibles for the decadence in the quality in venezuelan films.Hooray for Jakubowicz!