MovieChat Forums > Trapped (1989) Discussion > good film by the great Fred Walton...but...

good film by the great Fred Walton...but slightly confusing.


great premise,some lovely Fred Walton touches (lingering shots at ordinary objects to create suspense,dialogue about fear,violence,the human condition etc,), a good thriller all round, but some slighly confusing elements.
The killer kissing the corpse goodbye at his house at the beginning (who was she ?),the monkeys (in the penthouse/office...i read they were used for experiments...for what ? and i dont recall this being explained in the film.
Kathleens character smashing glass to get through locked doors...why didnt she just smash the glass doors at the entrance of the building ? at one point she writes HELP on the glass panel...i kept thinking why doesnt she just smash it. and the espionage angle isnt explained in any detail,the guy just says ' im investigating espionage'...for WHAT ?.
still....a good thriller from a great writer/director. it reminded me of an old THRILLER (70s UK tv,mystery,suspense series)episode.

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I think some of the answers are hinted at. The upper floors of the building are used as labs by some kind of high-tech pharmaceutical type of company (wouldn't be surprised if they own the whole building and rent out the rest for offices & the shopping mall). My guess is that some malfeasance by this company caused people to die or be terribly injured/sickened. I think the killer's wife (?) at the beginning is one of those victims, and that motivates his revenge.

Bruce Abbott's character is some kind of industrial spy. He's probably hired by the pharma company's competitor to discover their industry secrets.

Don't know why Kathleen didn't smash the entrance doors! Did she (as building manager?) already know they were made of unbreakable glass? Unlikely, but you never know . . .

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Yeah, the corporation was negligent somehow (toxic dumping maybe) and they caused deaths. I always took it that the killers child had died and he lost it etc. Pay close attention to the news articles during the opening. Also, tuffysmom is absolutely right. Most modern high rises have VERY sturdy glass. Remember how hard Bruce Willis had to beat the pane in Die Hard to alert the attention of the police? Fortunatley he had an automatic weapon. These characters were very limted to what they had which is one of the neat things about the movie. Obviously the glass on upper floors is built to discourage suicide/murder while the ground floor would be built this way to deter thieves etc. But when it comes down to it this is a high-concept cat and mouse thriller and if you rip a hole in the box too early... Hope it helps.

"I've seen things in this city that make Dante's Inferno read like Winnie The Pooh."

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