My wife and myself enjoy dramas based on real events, and we do not mind too much if they are not accurately factual, as we always do a search on the Internet afterward. Our search on this occasion confirmed our misgivings we felt during our viewing.
We had no knowledge whatsoever beforehand of this case and of the suffering of this family, and our comments will only be based on the film as we watched it. I had some knowledge of the many kidnappings occurring in Mexico, and the corruption, therefore understood a little of the reluctance of the authorities in this film to give them the support they deserved.
To begin, we could not understand why it was that it was the husband who was kidnapped, rather than the wife or one of the children. We could not really understand why he was beaten and tortured, in spite of the calm explanations given by the wife's supposedly secret government adviser. We could not understand why this adviser did little else, apart from play with the children. We could not understand why the husband should hold an account only in his name and which the wife knew about, but she could not access those funds. We do not recall ever being told what sort of occupation the husband held, sufficient to run a 1000 acre ranch, and how they came to possess other real estate which was on the market for 8 million dollars! Finally, when the husband was released, we felt that the film had done nothing to give us answers to these questions.
The blurb at the end explained that they were again a happy family, (it is not surprising they were happy having sold their ranch for probably no small sum, we guessed) and would never return to Mexico, and that the kidnappers have still not been apprehended.
If this film was intended only to invoke sympathy and support for the awful experience which they suffered, then it would succeed with those who might not ask these questions. For us, at least it gave us the incentive to do a search, and now we feel we have some answers, but we are keeping them to ourselves.
We give it six because it got us thinking.
We had no knowledge whatsoever beforehand of this case and of the suffering of this family, and our comments will only be based on the film as we watched it. I had some knowledge of the many kidnappings occurring in Mexico, and the corruption, therefore understood a little of the reluctance of the authorities in this film to give them the support they deserved.
To begin, we could not understand why it was that it was the husband who was kidnapped, rather than the wife or one of the children. We could not really understand why he was beaten and tortured, in spite of the calm explanations given by the wife's supposedly secret government adviser. We could not understand why this adviser did little else, apart from play with the children. We could not understand why the husband should hold an account only in his name and which the wife knew about, but she could not access those funds. We do not recall ever being told what sort of occupation the husband held, sufficient to run a 1000 acre ranch, and how they came to possess other real estate which was on the market for 8 million dollars! Finally, when the husband was released, we felt that the film had done nothing to give us answers to these questions.
The blurb at the end explained that they were again a happy family, (it is not surprising they were happy having sold their ranch for probably no small sum, we guessed) and would never return to Mexico, and that the kidnappers have still not been apprehended.
If this film was intended only to invoke sympathy and support for the awful experience which they suffered, then it would succeed with those who might not ask these questions. For us, at least it gave us the incentive to do a search, and now we feel we have some answers, but we are keeping them to ourselves.
We give it six because it got us thinking.