MovieChat Forums > Trapped (2002) Discussion > I've done this 4 times, but this time it...

I've done this 4 times, but this time it's revenge

posted 11 years ago by targa9
5 replies | jump to latest

They set up Joe to look like a pro; he's done it 4 times and always gets his money because he never goes to no stupid money drops! Yet, the 5th time, suddenly the victim is the doctor who presided over his daughter's surgery, and Joe wants revenge. What? So this guy Joe, in between robbing rich people
he daughter dies of cancer, and so the 5th time he uses his "kidnapping of children" skills to take revenge? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If he was so intent on revenge and distraught with grief, then why is he kidnapping children and having sex with the mothers? What a piece of work.

Secondly, why does he want to have sex with the mother? It's out of character for a grieving father to want to bang the doctor's wife. It's a plot hole to make us feel Joe is creepy, when later he's revealed to be a grieving father.
Come on. And all the TIME he allows Charlize to take, undressing in private, etc. as if she's going to enjoy it? Only a psycho with narcissism would believe the wife actually WANTS to have sex with her kidnapper. But Joe wasn't like this; he was really a grieving father, who talks fondly of children's finger paintings. Or is he a ruthless psycho? I don't know.

Thirdly, Why on Earth does Charlize fight the kidnapper? That's not realistic at all. Once she realized she could not shoot him, lest her daughter die from no phone call, she should have been completely submissive. I mean it's 24 hours, and it's only $250K. And what timing for Charlize to have the scalpel at his junk just as her daughter makes off with the retard's phone! Just more coincidence to heighten the thrills.

And wasn't the daughter supposed to do what the nice retard said as long as he didn't hurt her? She doesn't listen very well. And she
got caught, too, despite escaping out of sight. How stupid can she be?

I expected some clever coordination, and fighting back in this movie. But instead we have Charlize sending a text message RIGHT NEXT TO JOE while in the car! Are you kidding me? And it's all perfectly worded, too, on a Palm Pilot with a stylus--there she is calmly composing while the kidnapper drives. "Oh, not so fast, Joe, I'm trying to spell asthma on this thing, OK??" And I thought Palm Pilots were not wireless communication devices; otherwise they'd be cellphones, no?

Finally, these pros "never get caught" because if the FBI comes looking for them, they will hunt down the family and kill the daughter. Really? How would they know which of the 5 families snitched? And wouldn't they be a little too busy running from the law to hang around town and try and target their last victim? Ridiculous.

Anyway, Theron, Bacon, Love, Fanning were all great. Can't fault the acting for a lackluster thriller. A much better thriller is Nick Cage's "Trespass", where there are some truly original elements played out that truly "turn the tables" on the kidnappers/home invaders.

The best scene was when Courtney was injected with a paralytic.

[–] RottenBeauty 11 years ago

In the movie he doesn't start doing the kidnapping thing until AFTER his daughter dies.

Then he uses those other families as test runs so he can build up to the doctor's family.

He may be still grieving but his daughters death was years ago and thus his desire to have sex with good looking women isn't really impacted.

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[–] targa9 11 years ago

That's not how I understood it. I think it was made clear in the movie that he was already in the business of kidnapping women when his daughter died.
Even if what you say is true, it doesn't make sense that he would just "turn criminal" and rob innocent victims just because his daughter died. And he didn't need a test run; he was all confident and swaggering. I think the movie makers just tried to get us to think he was just a scumbag pro thief so they could lay the "twist" on us later (every movie, these days, has to have a twist, it seems), hoping we'd forget that it's not consistent with a grieving father to mix business with pleasure, or revenge with cool pro thievery.

[–] a_heathen_conceivably 11 years ago

I've just watched the film on TV for the first time. I interpreted it like this - the parents (and us, the audience) are supposed to believe that the kidnappers are experienced pros, but all that stuff about four times before was just, erm.. an act. The plot twist, as I saw it, is that they are really novices, albeit with the usual clichéd, perfect 'foolproof' plan. As Joe indicates, they are not motivated by greed (the money I suppose is just a bonus 'compensation') but by that other ancient motive, personal revenge (I accept though that Joe does have his similarly ill-advised misogynistic tendencies and tries to take advantage of his dominant position. Male villains holding attractive victims in these sort of bubble-gum movies always do). Their plan unravels, as they invariably must, because things happen that they hadn't thought of.

Update: Well... that was a crock of sh.. from me! Completely forgot the opening scene (just watched it on a quick TV repeat). Well it seems the previous kidnappings did happen, and the primary motive was as dummy runs for the main event (with the same motive as I originally described).

What a silly dénouement!

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[–] hubcap18 11 years ago

Why does he want to have sex with the mother? Because she looks like CHARLIZE THERON.

_______
As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.

[–] Hayley7 9 years ago

You make some good points
I'm not sure I know the answer, but I can attempt a guess...

Perhaps their whole story about "4 other kidnaps" is just that... a story... and yes I realise that it opens with him ending a kidnapping... but perhaps that was the only other one... perhaps that was the other doctor they mention... the surgeon who cut the wrong artery and killed their girl, but blamed Will for it... maybe he blamed him to get the focus off himself and his kid and that's why they ended up giving the kid back

In terms of having sex with Karen... I would assume it would just be another knife in Will... not only is he coming into his home and taking his child away, but he's also having his wife... notice how he always brings Will up as he's seducing Karen... asking if this is what he wears / if this is what they do etc... he is obsessed with Will and revenge against him in any form

Lastly, I think that although she is certainly emotional, she is kinda doing what he wants in the beginning... it's after he mentiones something about the hospital that she realises it might be personal... that's when she starts to take action fearing something else is going on

But yeah of course movies like this are always gona have totally silly, unrealistic situations... I mean when he first comes into the house she has the gun on him and he talks her into putting it down... if that was me, I would have already shot him a couple times (but only wounding him) and called the police... when he's bleeding out and the police are on the way, that would pretty much take away all his options from him... he'd be forced to give up the girl if he wanted medical attention... or be forced to have his cousin come return the girl and take him to hospital before the police arrive... so the movie would've been over in 10mins lol