Captive State

A complete and total misfire, Captive State details the efforts of several characters to both collaborate and rebel against their alien conquerors. It’s clear that Rupert Wyatt admittedly manages to capture the viewer’s interest right from the get-go, as Captive State opens with a strong pre-credits sequence that seems to promise a gritty, violent little thriller – with this vibe vanishing almost immediately afterward as the picture segues into a progressively baffling and aggressively context-free narrative (ie this boasts the feel of a television season’s worth of story that’s been clumsily condensed to a 109 minute feature). The less-than-engrossing atmosphere is compounded by a total lack of three-dimensional characters, as Wyatt, working from a script cowritten with Erica Beeney, delivers an assortment of protagonists that’ve barely been developed beyond their most outward attributes – which essentially leaves talented performers like John Goodman, Vera Farmiga, and Ashton Sanders floundering and unable to make a positive impact. Sanders’ ongoing emphasis on frustratingly unexplained elements (eg a character is told that wearing a cross will make them a target, but why?) only perpetuates Captive State‘s aggressively hands-off feel, and it goes without saying, certainly, that the abrupt and hopelessly anticlimactic finale confirms the film’s place as a seriously misbegotten endeavor.

* out of ****