Brief Story Line
Pietro (Riccardo Scamarcio - A Haunting in Venice, My Brother Is an Only Child etc) and his wife Elena (Annabelle Wallis - Malignant, Peaky Blinders TV series etc) who had been married for years and living in Bari were in the middle of divorce process. Elena wanted to take their children Bianca (Gaia Coletti) and Giovanni (Lorenzo Ferrante) back to US as she was not happy in Italy, while Pietro wanted to stay in Bari even though he was having financial difficulty.
When Bianca and Giovanni were staying for the night at Pietro's house, they were kidnapped by unknown person. With time running out, Pietro had to look for ways to save his children even by seeking the help from his shady old friend Nicola (Massimiliano Gallo).
So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
From what I read on the brief synopsis, this movie sounded interesting and I thought it would be filled with intense moments through out. It did not take long before the suspenseful moment started, however it was not as great as I had hoped would be. As I continued watching, I felt the movie was moving in a standard pace which was unlike what I expected for someone in this kind of situation. But it did got better after a while, especially when there was a surprising twist that I did not see coming. It was something that made me not completely regret watching the movie.
Unfortunately though, the ending was rather disappointing. For such a built up, I would have hoped it would end differently. During closing credit, I noticed that the film was based on "Septimo" by Patxi Amezcua. After searching on the internet, I found out it was a Spanish 2013 movie which from the trailer seemed to be more exciting and the mystery seemed to be more emphasized. But since I did not watch the whole film, I could not say if it was better or worse than this Italian version, including if its ending was more satisfying.
Anyway the movie had a short duration of only 92 minutes. Riccardo Scamarcio seemed to try his best to put up a decent performance, though sometimes I felt that his facial expression here was a bit too flat. He looked the same whether he was angry, sad, or relieved and so on which was surprising considering he is a very experienced actor. Meanwhile Annabelle Wallis was not that impressive either, at least for me. Other than the names I mentioned above, there were only few other in very minor roles. The movie was directed by Renato de Maria (Robbing Mussolini, Italian Gangsters etc) who loved to show the beautiful scenery of Bari. It was the best highlight of this film to my opinion.
In the end this was a movie that felt a bit short of my expectation. The intensity was not really felt and it was not helped by the lack of dramatic moments. Although it has a nice surprising twist, but the ending was overly simplistic and was not satisfying for me. I am not sure if it's well received by critics while audience probably interested in finding out new movies on Netflix anyway. But whether it stayed in the Top 10 for long or just this week remained to be seen. So if you are intrigued by the seemingly interesting premise like me, then you might not be pleased with this thriller drama. I think there are plenty of better ones with such kind of story. But if you just want to find out why it was popular, then you are welcome to give it a try. Who knows you could see this from different perspective and enjoy it.
Mike's movie moments rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
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