In movies such as these, in which traditional values are taken for granted, the family is seen as the repository of all that is holy in a secular world. It is to be defended by any means necessary. Or avenged by any means that come to hand —this is the moral justification underlying any number of violent filmic acts in which the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger specialise.
Apart from that, these two movies could hardly be more dissimilar. Trapped is busy, supercharged, with barely a moment’s peace, while One Hour Photo is so quiet as to be almost catatonic.
Trapped features Kevin Bacon and Courtney Love as practised kidnappers with a well-oiled routine. Their latest target is the Jennings family, composed of dad Will (Stuart Towns-hend, a doctor-aviator — the flying bit will come in handy at the climax), mom Karen (Charlize Theron) and daughter Abby (Dakota Fanning). The Bacon character, all malevolent charm, has Abby snatched while dad is away on a conference and then coolly breaks the news to mom. Mom goes hysterical for a bit, but then intermittently pulls herself together — hey, she’s refusing to be a victim!
The stylish camerawork keeps jittering us along, keeping us as edgy as possible. There are plenty of twists and turns, too, as the advantage shifts and shifts again in this game of nerves. Bacon is excellent as the evil kidnapper — almost too excellent. Theron spends most of her time with her face in a tear-streaked grimace, but that’s right for the plot, so let’s not complain about the very limited range of acting skills required. Towns-hend is solid, Love is repulsive — perhaps this is just good typecasting. Fanning, as the asthmatic child, is heart-rendingly good. When she gets her predictable asthma attack, while in captivity, the tension is enough to make one’s own lungs seize up.
It all moves pacily along, reaching a rather over-the-top climax, but that is to be expected in a movie that is pulling out all the stops. One Hour Photo, by contrast, does most of its work by holding back. Its mood is sombre, its look mostly bleached, and Robin Williams plays a part that requires him, unusually, to keep it all inside.
Williams is middle-aged Sy, who works in a one-hour photo-developing shop in a huge, bland supermarket. His life is so empty, and he is so lonely, that he has taken to fantasising about being part of a family whose photos he routinely develops and prints — and purloins by making a set for himself. The family in question is the Yorkins, another minimal nuclear unit (dad even has the same name as the dad in Trapped) of mom Nina (Connie Nielsen), dad Will (Michael Vartan) and young son Jakob (Dylan Smith).
The film opens with Sy having been apprehended by the police, so we have the rest of the movie to find out, in long-distance flashback, what exactly happened. Of course one imagines the worst, and the film-makers cleverly play with our expectations. What the possibly psychopathic loner Sy uncovers is that this apparently perfect family is perhaps not so perfect after all. Which, added to Williams’s fascinating performance, and the cool deliberation with which One Hour Photo is made, makes it the more interesting of our two thrillers. Still hard on the nerves, though.