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Published by Cannes
May 17, 2014
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Atom Egoyan's 'The Captive' Slammed By Critics

                         

Director Atom Eyogen's abduction thriller "The Captive", starring Ryan Reynolds, has been met with largely negative reviews and is looking to be one of the worst selections of the festival. Many critics have scoffed at the film's script, calling it "ludicrous" and "bizzare". 

 

The film, which centers around child abduction and child sex rings, has many critics upset at how the story unfolds throughout, with one critic, The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw, calling the script "embarrassingly unconvincing". Bradshaw also wrote that the film is "offensively preposterous and crass" and "doesn't convince as a conventional thriller". 

                      

Eyogan won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes in 1997 for "The Sweet Hereafter", but it doesn't look like he will be getting any awards this year. The Hollywood Reporter went on to blast the film, saying that "misguided loyalty to the competition alumni is the only explanation for the film's presence in the Cannes lineup". 

Similar to last year's Denis Villeneuve's thriller "Prisoners", the director should get a theatrical release in the States sometime this year, but if this years Cannes berth is any indication, the film will probably not do well in America either. 

 

 

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