Review of Captive

Captive (II) (2015)
9/10
An Outstanding Story of Hope!
18 September 2015
Warning: Spoilers
My wife and I recently saw a pre-release screening of Captive at The Sheen Center in New York City, along with 130 recovering drug addicts. What a powerful message of hope for them!

It's a very powerful film about how Ashley Smith, played by Kate Mara (Fantastic Four), was held captive by Brian Nichols, played by David Oyelowo (Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma), in her own home for seven hours. Brian put a woman in a coma and then shot and killed four people as he made his escape from an Atlanta area courthouse and carjacked one vehicle after the next. He took refuge in Ashley's home, where she read from The Purpose Driven Life, the second most translated book next to The Bible, to Brian, and he (SPOILER ALERT for any who weren't aware of this front page incident over ten years ago) turned himself in to authorities.

The film has the crucible of Ashley's home at the center of its tightly wound plot. Michael K. Williams (RoboCop) plays Detective John Chestnut, who is leading the pursuit.

Ashley's book is titled Unlikely Angel because she was a methamphetamines addict at the time she was taken hostage in her own home. After the screening we saw, Ashley was a part of a panel interviewed by Gayle King of CBS Good Morning. Gayle asked Ashley about a moment in the film when Brian asks Ashley for drugs. She brings out the methamphetamines she almost flushed earlier. Brian tells her to take the drugs along with him. Ashley told the audience at the screening that in that moment she knew she had been more of a captive to drugs than she was to Brian that night. She refuses the drugs as he's taking them, but later, when he thinks they were laced, he tries again to force her to take them. Still she refuses. Ashley told us that her Aunt Kim had prayed for the Lord to take Ashley Home if she were not able to stop taking the drugs. Ashley thought that if she capitulated to taking the drugs when Brian held the gun to her head, she would literally die. Caught between death at Brian's hand and death at the drugs' hand, she chose obedience to God, risking her life with the man who'd killed four people that morning. Brian hijacked five vehicles within fifteen minutes, and one woman reported that he told her, "Don't you see this blood on my hands? I'm a dead man." Ashley also knew he had nothing to lose, but still she chose not to take those drugs. Ashley told us that after that moment she began to see Brian through the eyes of Jesus. Later in the interview Gayle King asked Ashley what compelled her to make pancakes for Brian. She took us back to that moment of refusing to take the drugs and how it sparked her ability to see him through the eyes of Jesus and treat him as a real human being.

Ashley was joined in the talk-back by...

Read my full review at www.RichDrama.com/Captive
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