SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Purely Joyful Movie!

Dreadfully Boring

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

Talking to a family friend about my dad getting the Spanish Horror Timecrimes,I got told about a very similar movie starring Melissa George called Triangle. While finding out details between the two,I spotted a film starring George which has not come out on UK DVD, that was about to leave Netflix UK,which led to me getting set to witness the betrayal.The plot:Driving to the airport to pick up her husband Kevin,Jamie and her son Michael get caught in a crash that knocks them out. Waking up,Jamie finds herself being held hostage in a secret location. Screaming out to ask the kidnappers what they want,Jamie soon learns that Kevin has betrayed her trust.View on the film:Held captive in one room, Melissa George gives a captivating performance as Jamie. Terrified over the hostage takers watching her every move,George subtly expresses the sharp determination that grips Jamie as the betrayal becomes clear. Speaking behind a door for the opening 30 minutes, Oded Fehr gives a wonderfully creepy performance as Alec/"The Voice",whose voice is given a calculating menace by Fehr.Initially looking like a "Torture Horror" flick,writer/director Amanda Gusack puts the saw down,and turns the screws to a psychological Thriller. Keeping Jamie in one room,the screenplay by Gusack brings to light brief flashback that delve into the things Kevin has kept out of Jamie's sight. Keeping the dialogue brittle, Gusack makes each revelation Alec makes one that coils Jamie's sense of betrayal. Locked in the room with Jamie,Gusack and cinematographer Roger Vernon cover the walls in a metallic grey cutting Jamie off from the world,as Jamie starts to plan her own betrayal.

I usually don't talk about reviews by other users but a reviewer of this movie has said about another user that he could be the director's ex to review it just one star. Well, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Anyway, the movie wasn't that bad. The acting by almost everyone was very good. I just have the problem with the script. It wasn't badly written but I just found a few things stupid. Spoiler Alert: 1. The brick in the room comes off conveniently for her to check next room. 2. No huge twists. From the start of the movie we are told that the husband is a betrayer and after that, that fact never changes throughout the movie. When he finally talks to her, maybe we are supposed to think he wasn't wrong but he mentions the money way too early. 3. I may be confused but why won't Alec type the username & password himself instead of writing it to her? Maybe he didn't have enough time? 4. Transfer happens at the last minute: Things like these have been done so many times in the movies that they don't thrill me any more. 5. Then the site conveniently goes down for maintenance after all that: Awesome. 6. All that & she managed to change the password. 7. Everything (transfer & all) is done right before Falco arrives: Another "action done at the last minute" thing. 7. Alek tries to shoot Falco & it seems that she ducks to avoid a bullet although she's very close & if she got her arm shot, she gets up without even cringing? 8. Alec conveniently lives on after being shot so he could talk to Jamie in the end and/or is not shot again by Kevin even after opening his mouth.But other than those things the movie was very interesting & I didn't feel like turning it off. There were a few things I liked too, but I won't mention them.

As a minimalist, ultra low-budget (then again, if my friends and I made this with the budget listed here, we may well have had $3.4 million left in the kitty for our next flick), virtually one-room set film, THE BETRAYED sort of commands attention for its 98-minute running time. If its stated setting was Burnaby, British Columbia, the viewer could think: "Oh yeah, these keystone crooks are kind of plausible in a region where the populace evidently is NOT aware that their national guard won independence 141 years earlier, since they haven't updated a name that specifically denotes their ancestors' colonial masters from centuries earlier. Let's give these confused Britons and Colombians the benefit of the doubt, and rate this tale from backwards Burnaby at 7 of 10, since having all the main characters behaving as clueless dolts would not pass the suspension-of-disbelief test for Philadelphia--or Peoria, but who really knows if or when the 21st Century level of civilization will reach Burnaby."However, with their understandably massive inferiority complex, the Canadian filmmakers have once again chosen for about the millionth time to try to foist off the doings of unsophisticated blunderers as actions which become totally incredible for mobsters, computer science majors, and police officers who are products of American public schools. Ten people are shot to death during THE BETRAYED, with the title no doubt meant to refer to how each one submits to his death like a sheep going to slaughter--even the character who has already gunned down two cops and six fellow mobsters. If you asked them WHY they were so blind-sided, their only possible reply would be, "because the script betrayed me." If you watch BLOOD SIMPLE or FARGO by the Coen brothers, you will see that master filmmakers leave themselves an out when there is lots of misguided mayhem, by portraying their characters as hicks operating in the boondocks. Conversely, Coppola would not make a savvy urban mob boss (think Marlon Brando in GODFATHER) stare into an underling's revolver for half a minute, doing some sort of internal Hamlet "to be, or not to be" monologue, when they could save themselves by just pulling their own trigger! Sure, Philadelphia had Rocky, but even Cousin Paulie could have gotten the drop on these Burnaby bums.

Pretty clearly dealing with a low budget, this film manages to spend the money wisely, on script and actors who know how. A woman is abducted with her child, by people who want the money her husband stole from a crime syndicate. She thought he was just a struggling restaurant owner. What can she believe, and who can she trust? Set almost exclusively in the room in which she's detained, this turns into a pretty nifty little drama. There are a few plot holes, but they're minor, and didn't drive me out of the movie. The acting is occasionally stereotypical of a "type", but most of the characters are believable and well-portrayed.This is considerably better than some big-budget stuff I've seen lately - well worth a few hours of your time.