Image copyright © by Marcus Trahan

The Disappearance of Alice Creed

(2010)

There are so many plot twists in this movie that I really can’t discuss most of it without ruining the surprises. I think there are at least six, maybe even seven, surprises, reversals of fortune, gotcha moments, and the like. The good news is that most of them work well, and I had no trouble buying them. There is one twist at the last that bothered me, involving a badly wounded man making his way across country to arrive in the nick of time (but not really; another twist), and I couldn’t figure out how he got there. And there is an instance of someone making a pretty bad decision … but don’t we all?

What I can say: There are only three people in the cast, and almost all of it takes place in a single apartment. Two men prepare an elaborate prison (we see them building it, wordlessly, and they’ve certainly thought it all out) and then kidnap a young woman. They make a video of her, terrified, and demand two million pounds from her rich father. And shortly after that we get the first of the twists, and it’s a humdinger. That’s all I can say.

It’s a pretty good thriller, had me going almost all the way through.