Captive

Story: Detailed account of the Dos Palmas kidnapping crisis.

Review: The Dos Palmas hostage crisis is still fresh the minds of this generation. Director Brillante Mendoza made this film for the Star Cinema but with a substance of an independent film of which the director is familiar of.

Although the story is set in South, most of the time it was only in Rizal area and the production make it to look like they are in Mindanao during the hostage situation. Director Mendoza made it detailed by interviewing actual people from the soldiers, surviving ASG members or their wives and the surviving hostage victims.

Mendoza made this film not to discredit the country but to make the people aware. Rest assured, the movie is not anti-Muslim. It was also fair. When you think of Muslims, it shouldn't be synonymous with terrorism. During 9/11, Muslim leaders denounced "association of the terrorists' behavior and interpretations of Islam as false and illegitimate"(Charles Kimball, When Religion Becomes Evil). There's also a matter of tribal affiliation. Muslims have different tribes in the Middle East as well as here in the Philippines. We really can't generalize Muslims.

Director Mendoza is recognized internationally for his films and he already won in the Cannes Film Festival. It is no surprise that he was able to cast another Cannes award winning French actress Isabelle Huppert. Ms. Huppert was a dedicated actress during the filming. She didn't mind getting rough outdoors despite her superstar status.

This is truly a quality film that a Filipino should do more often. We usually have sugar-coated movies but most lack substance. I like our local movies to do stories that can make us think and realize the Philippine situation not just horror, comedy and romance. This movie was also part of the Berlin Film Fest before it was shown here. Although this is a true story, there are some characters that are fictitious.

This movie gathered an all star cast including Maria Isabel Lopez, Mercedes Cabral, Raymond Bagatsing, Sid Lucero, Ronnie Lazaro, Angel Aquino and more. We are having the local version in our local cinemas. The international version is much longer. Coco Martin is also part of the cast but appears only in the international version. Captive is released and distributed by Star Cinema in Philippine cinemas starting September 5.