One morning successful but retired Pittsburgh rental car magnate Wayne Hays (Redford) is kidnapped by an envious and bitter unemployed man named Arnold Mack (Dafoe). Hays's wife Eileen (Mirren) and his two grown children, who return home for the crisis, cooperate with the FBI in trying to figure out what the kidnappers want and how to get her husband back. While Hays tries to feel out and escape from Mack, some of the couple's secrets (from the world and from each other) seep out during the investigation. This 2004 film, written and directed by first-timers Justin Haythe and Pieter Jan Brugge, respectively, is a character study rather than an all-out thriller: its calm, measured, slow-moving tension and skewed time frames (the two men's story occupies only one day, while the family is shown over the course of weeks, with the film cutting regularly between the two) bear a resemblance to "In the Bedroom" and may not be for everyone, but the writing and acting (especially by Mirren, the true center of the story) are superb.
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The review of this Movie prepared by David Loftus
