Carjacked [DVD]

Just before I wrote this review, I looked up Carjacked on IMDb and happened to notice some of the reviews on there. Pretty much all of them gave it 1/10! Now, I'm not going to say that Carjacked is a classic or that it offers anything that you haven't really seen before, but I would stress that it's a lot better than a 1/10.

Single mother Maria Bello stops off for petrol (or `gas' as they say in America) and gets carjacked by Stephen Dorff, taking her and her son hostage. What follows is basically a `cat and mouse' sort of situation where she tries to protect her son and/or escape at the same time.

There you have it - nothing new. However, it's still not as bad as a 1/10. All three lead actors play their parts well. Special mention to Stephen Dorff who flits between charming and psychotic quite nicely. Mario Bello does her best to escape, but, as is pointed out at the beginning of the film, has a history of doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, so that kind of excuses some of her subsequent bad decisions she makes throughout the rest of the movie. Even the kid, who is naturally squeaky clean, is actually not totally unlikeable and annoying (like most kids in films).

So, there you have it, nothing new, but nothing bad. Although I probably wouldn't watch it again any time soon, it kept me entertained for an hour and a half.

I may even stretch to a 3.5 out of 5.

Unless you live the solo life more often than not your choice of film is predicated on compromise. The missus can't stand sci-fi and anything with zombies/vampires (or any mix of the three) whilst I can't stand rom-coms, period dramas and true-crime. Invariably we end up with something in between which neither of us actually massively likes. Step forward Car Jacked, the equivalent of the fat kid at school getting picked last for footie.

Don't get me wrong, it's not a total disaster of a film and it certainly won't overly-tax the grey matter. A straightforward plot sees our damsel in distress (Bello) and son car-jacked by ne'er-do-well bankrobber on the run (Dorff) and made to drive to pre-arranged destination to meet up with fellow ne'er-do-well. You'd think it'd be far less stress to get a Sat-Nav but some people insist on making life harder for themselves. So in essence it's a story of will they or won't they get away unscathed, with largely predictable results.

Car Jacked does what it says on the tin and offers 90 mins of shameless 'leave your brain at the door' action. Where it falls down slightly is Bello's character via her self-loathing, passive-agressive persona gets very grating, and Dorff's baddie just isn't menacing enough to elicit any feelings of concern for the carjacked pair; think more of a crack-addled beggar demanding a quid for their bus ride home, that's about the level of menace it achieves. So it's down to the young lad to carry the film somewhat.

Around two thirds in the film runs out of road (i'm here all week folks) and descends into farcical, gung-ho action rather than ratcheting-up the suspense, which is fine in itself but with a better script and execution it could have been more promising. If you wanted to watch something of its ilk but done far better then Kurt Russell's Breakdown captures the feeling of helpless impotence with aplomb.

In short, if you've run out of DVDs to watch and can't see anything on TV worth watching then you could do far worse than this. File under 'i've had enough of worthy subtitled cinema and fancy 90 mins of brainless disengagement'.

One of the worst films ive ever seen, terrible story, zero budget, bad acting, idiotic ending. Im amazed this crap got made let alone released, watch a good crime film like the original " the getaway" with steve mcqueen, do not watch carjacked as youll never ever forgive yourself for wasting an hour and a half of your life.