How confident are US distributors Anchor Bay in J Blakeson's UK thriller The Disappearance of Alice Creed? Confident enough that they're giving you the first five minutes more than a month before its August 6th release in theaters and on VOD. And they've got good reason to be ...
We've been very outspoken supporters of this one since we saw it at the Toronto International Film Festival. I personally went as far as to say that I think Blakeson could be the next Danny Boyle. It's a tight, nasty little piece of work and it certainly doesn't hurt that Gemma Arterton (Quantum of Solace, Clash of the Titans, Prince of Persia) and Eddie Marsan (Sherlock Holmes) have both seen their US star value rise considerably in the months between the festival premiere and public release. You'll find the synopsis below and the first five minutes below that.
We've been very outspoken supporters of this one since we saw it at the Toronto International Film Festival. I personally went as far as to say that I think Blakeson could be the next Danny Boyle. It's a tight, nasty little piece of work and it certainly doesn't hurt that Gemma Arterton (Quantum of Solace, Clash of the Titans, Prince of Persia) and Eddie Marsan (Sherlock Holmes) have both seen their US star value rise considerably in the months between the festival premiere and public release. You'll find the synopsis below and the first five minutes below that.
Two men - one in his twenties, the other nearer forty, both intensely focused on the task at hand - line the inside of a transit van with plastic. Shopping, they buy a drill, a mattress and other supplies. In a small flat they assemble a bed for the mattress and staple foam insulation and board to the walls and windows of a bedroom. Then, their meticulous preparations complete, they kidnap a young woman. They drag her from the street into the back of the van and, with a bag over her head and ball gag in her mouth, take her back to the flat, tying her to the bed in the room they have converted into a prison cell.
The kidnappers are Danny (Martin Compston) and Vic (Eddie Marsan), two ex-cons planning to make a mint on the ransom for the young woman. The younger, nervier of the two, Danny defers to the more experienced Vic, who acts with a steely conviction. Their hostage is Alice Creed (Gemma Arterton), daughter of a rich businessman, chosen by Vic and Danny as their passport to a better life. Terrified and immobile at first, it soon becomes clear that Alice isn't about to let her captors use her as capital without a fight. As determined to escape as Vic and Danny are to succeed, Alice enters into a battle of wills which strains the already fractious relationship between the two men. As the deadline for the exchange draws nearer, all three are brought close to breaking point, with Vic and Danny's foolproof plan descending into a desperate struggle for survival.
A taut, emotionally intense thriller, the debut feature from writer-director J Blakeson eschews genre convention, generating tension from the sexual and psychological ties that bind captive to captors.Produced by Adrian Sturges (The Escapist), the film stars Gemma Arterton (Prince of Persia, Tamara Drewe, Quantum of Solace), Eddie Marsan (Happy-Go-Lucky, Sherlock Holmes) and Martin Compston (Sweet Sixteen, Red Road)