I watched KIDNAPPED IN ROMANIA, expecting from the cover for it to be a typical action thriller with an East European setting and imported American star in the form of a slumming-it Michael Madsen. Well, I was right about the slumming-it Madsen, but everything else was unexpected, and not in a good way. I expected something of the quality of a recent Steven Seagal-starring straight-to-DVD thriller, but what I got was far worse.
The whole thing is a genuine Romanian production rather than simply a Hollywood picture shot in Europe. The filmmaking style is far below what you would expect. There's a long, drawn-out plot about theft and gangsters, and a whole lot of dialogue, and not much else. Madsen hangs around on a porch in a few scenes but this is mostly made up of unknown actors struggling with the English language. The whole movie has an amateurish feel and it completely falls down as a thriller, in fact as a proper film full stop. Watch out for Paul Sorvino's intensely embarrassed cameo.
The whole thing is a genuine Romanian production rather than simply a Hollywood picture shot in Europe. The filmmaking style is far below what you would expect. There's a long, drawn-out plot about theft and gangsters, and a whole lot of dialogue, and not much else. Madsen hangs around on a porch in a few scenes but this is mostly made up of unknown actors struggling with the English language. The whole movie has an amateurish feel and it completely falls down as a thriller, in fact as a proper film full stop. Watch out for Paul Sorvino's intensely embarrassed cameo.