The Disappearance of Alice Creed is a straight-on crime thriller
about a pair of British men, Vic and Danny, (Eddie Marsan and Martin Compston,
respectively) who decide to make some money by abducting a young heiress, the
titular Alice (Gemma Arterton). The first five minutes of the movie details their
stringent preparations for the abduction of Alice. They set up an apartment with
sound-proofing panels, and then steal a white van and cover the interior walls of
its cargo section with disposable wrapping. Only when everything is in place do
they finally set out to kidnap Alice, and her abduction goes off without a hitch.
When Alice is brought to the apartment, she faces a humiliating experience of
having ransom photos taken of her while she’s tied down to a bed, and then these
photos are then emailed to her family. It’s the perfect crime--but as anybody
who’s familiar with this genre knows, things never go the way the antiheroes hope
they will. The best laid plans begin to crumble when Alice winds up being far
more spunky, and determined, than her abductors had expected.
Arterton, who I last saw in the extremely silly Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time,
acquits herself very nicely here. She’s marvelous at playing a desperate, but
inventive, woman who tries to turn the tables on her abductors whenever and
however she can. Marsan, last seen as Inspector Lestrade in Robert Downey Jr.’s revisionist
Sherlock Holmes, is also superb as Victor, the veteran criminal who tries to
cover all the bases. Compston handles his character’s inner turmoil very well, and together the three
actors work very well off of each other.
The problem is that the film is very twisty and curvy--so
much so that it might have made even Hitchcock’s head spin. The filmmakers’
constant desire to shock the audience with one stunning plot twist after another
does get tiring after a while, making me wish they had served their fine cast
better by paying more attention to subtle characterization. A sudden turn into
soap opera territory at the end really doesn’t help, marring what could have been
a very good crime thriller. As it stands now, Alice Creed's cast is better than
the material.
--SF
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