SECUESTRO EXPRESS Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Miramax Films
Grade: B
Directed by: Jonathan Jakubowicz
Written by: Jonathan Jakubowicz
Cast: Mia Maestro, Ruben Blades, Carlos Julio Molina, Pedro
Perez, Carlos Madera, Jean Paul Leroux
Screened at: Broadway, NYC, 6/29/05 If the invention of the automobile around the turn of the last century facilitated crimes such as bank robbery, then the introduction of cell phones and bank ATM’s is making kidnaping more lucrative and easy than ever before, allowing criminals and potential donors of ransom to communicate tactics step by step. Jonathan Jakubowicz’s attempts to prove this with his film “Secuestro Express” (“secuestro” means “kidnap”), providing ample surprises and a happy unpredictability. Though it does not begin to have the carefully developed human interest slant that was the Joshua Marston’s masterwork “Maria, Full of Grace”–the tale of a young Colombian woman who swallows bags of heroin for resale in New York–this fast-paced film provides lots of tension and even an idea or two about the injustice of an oil-rich country that finds half the population of its principal city starving. According to the production notes, every sixty minutes a person is abducted in Latin America, 70% failing to survive. “Secuestro Express” is the story of one of those criminal events, all taking place within a single 24-hour period, the moronic abductors competing against one another for the amateur-hour prize. The two victims are an engaged couple from the upper reaches of Caracas society, Carla (Mia Maestro) and Martin (Jean Paul Leroux). Fond of the city’s late-night life and of the drugs most fashionable to their social class, they are taken away at gunpoint by three mobsters; Trece (Carlos Julio Molina), Budu (Pedro Perez) and Niga (Carlos Madera)–who enliven their hours with the two beautiful people by insulting them, beating the young man, threatening to rape the woman, and fighting among themselves. Either amateurish, or determined to end the lives of their victims even after receiving the $40,000 ransom, they make no attempt to mask their faces or use false names when communicating with one another. One of the bandits appears a bit more educated and gentlemanly than the other, and a bit of a Marxist who tells Carla how much people like her are hated by rank and file Venezuelans not so much because they came into money but by the way they flaunt it with their high living. Carla’s response, “How can you do this to me? I tell you I’m a volunteer at a center for poor children!” is good for a laugh by the kidnapers and presumably the movie theater audience as well, conjuring up the 1960's folk song, “Love me love me love me, I’m a liberal.” One of the surprises occurs at an ATM, another in the luxurious home of a drug dealer, yet another in Martin’s behavior when he gets the chance to flee without his girlfriend. The movie has its share of cinematic tricks which are not overused, including the dividing of the screen into halves and even quarters to simultaneously display the goings on in various sectors of the city, the entire project coming across in cinema-verite tones to underscore the darker side of the opulent city. “Secuestro Express” does not overstay its welcome, a picture that sometimes treats criminals and victims in a cartoonish manner, but whose fast pace and good-looking leads add nicely. Not Yet Rated. 86 minutes © 2005 by Harvey Karten
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