The Disappearance of Alice Creed
Former prison cellmates Vic and Danny have hatched a plan: kidnap the daughter of a multi-millionaire and hold her to ransom for £2million.
Plot summary
A rich man's daughter is held captive in an abandoned apartment by two former convicts who abducted her and hold her ransom in exchange for her father's money.
Former prison cellmates Vic (Eddie Marsan) and Danny (Martin Compston) have hatched a plan: kidnap the daughter of a multi-millionaire and hold her to ransom for £2million. The venture is meticulously planned, with the duo converting a flat into a soundproof prison. They successfully grab the terrified Alice Creed (Gemma Arterton) from the street, bundle her to their hideaway and chain her to the bed. She appears to be completely at their mercy. Surely, there’s no way in which the plan can go awry, is there?
Of course, if that were the case, there would be very little to recommend the debut feature from writer and director J. Blakeson, which makes the most of its minimal cast, budget and claustrophic setting. With the aid of a pulse-quickening score, the film is to be applauded for successfully maintaining suspense from the start – right up to its edge-of-the-seat climax.
It’s difficult to say more without revealing too much of the story, but suffice to say, the plot is carried by two major twists, which for many, may prove to be the film’s undoing. Both, quite frankly, lack credibility. Your enjoyment of the movie may depend on your ability or willingness to suspend disbelief and cast cynicism aside. Some may also find the early scenes of the kidnap, in which the terrified and sobbing Creed is stripped naked, gratuitous to the story.
Arterton is decent enough in a demanding role, while Marsan is superb as the menacing and trigger-happy Vic. If Compston is less effective, it’s perhaps because his character is the most complex. In the end, he fails to convince as being sufficiently cold-blooded or calculating.
Despite the pace temporarily sagging around the midway mark, Blakeson and his cast have delivered an original small-scale thriller. You may roll your eyes at the plot’s more ludicrous flights of fancy, but you’ll still want to stick with it to the end.
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