Well, here’s something we don’t get every day. The feature film debut by writer/director J. Blakeson is deceptively simple in its blueprint; a nervy little thriller that gives us three characters and then sets them up to pinball against each other for the next 100 minutes in a story that opens up in ways the audience will never expect.
It’s difficult to talk about “The Disappearance Of Alice Creed” without giving away some major spoilers (which we won’t do here) but we will do our best. The film opens with a wickedly composed and wordless sequence featuring Vic (Eddie Marsan) and Danny (Martin Compston) buying an assorted variety of things including a power drill, handcuffs, duct tape and a ball gag. From there we watch them prep an abandoned residence (best kept secret) for something that will definitely be unsavory. A new bed is purchased and anchored into the floor. Hooks are added to each end of the bed, the dwelling’s windows are boarded up and the front door and bedroom door are put under several locks. Next, we cut to Vic and Danny sitting in a van. Waiting. And then snatching Alice (Gemma Arterton) off the street, dumping her in the back and driving off. And then it begins.
For the film’s opening third it seems it will be a routine kidnap thriller. We learn that Alice has a very rich father, that Vic has conjured up the seemingly perfect crime which, if it all works out will leave him and Danny rich, Alice alive, with no trace of the crime coming back to them. But of course, things never go as planned. As the film rolls into its second and third acts connections between all three are revealed that change the scope and dynamic of Vic and Danny’s criminal enterprise leading to a strong handful of surprising plot twists.
As the film turns the screws on its characters, Blakeson asks the audience to take a leap of faith with him, and there are a couple of implausibilities and slight niggling issues that would be more bothersome if the rewards weren’t that good and the payoffs not that rich. But they are. The audience we saw it with laughed more than once with an “I-can’t-believe-they-went-there” tenor but asses were on the edge of seats and the theater broke into hearty applause at the end credits.
Anchored by three strong performances — with Marsan milking his now trademark ferocity for all its worth and Arterton sticking it out in a grueling role that requires her to be bound and gagged for much of it — “The Disappearance Of Alice Creed” is a gritty, B-movie potboiler that knows exactly what it is and pushes all of the genre conventions right to the edge of the envelope without spilling over into C-movie camp. Yes, the film does meander a bit towards the finish line and Blakeson does try out a few different endings before settling on one he likes, but the director has undoubtedly made his Hollywood calling card with a film that delivers the kind of late night, old school thrills we don’t get very often any more. [B]