Ìý User Rating 
More exploitation than expose, Secuestro Express is a crass kidnap thriller that turns a social problem into an excuse for sleazy spectacle. The worst advert ever for the Venezuelan tourist board, Jonathan Jakubowicz's misfire depicts a nation up to its neck in drugs, violence and corruption. The latest victims of this hellhole are wealthy couple Jean Paul Leroux and Mia Maestro, whose late-night abduction by three scumbags becomes an 88-minute ordeal for the audience.
Drunkenly vulnerable after a Caracas club-crawl, coke fiend Martin (Leroux) and his better half Carla ( Maestro) are returning to their swish car when the kidnappers (Carlos Morina, Pedro Perez, Carlos Madera) pounce. After a $20,000 ransom demand's been made to Carla's loaded dad (Ruben Blades), the gang bungle a robbery, visit their gay dope-dealer pal and sneer endless sexual threats at their female captive (the only character who warrants a shred of empathy).
All this would be lurid enough without writer-helmer Jakubowicz over-directing the film like he's Guy Ritchie's understudy. The smeary DV visuals are a constant eyeache of crazy angles, fast motion and captioned freeze frames. The odd stroke of brilliance - like an overhead shot that climbs till the people are ants - hardly compensates.
"SMEARY DV VISUALS"
Buried well beneath the bombast is a critique of the chasm between rich and poor in Latin America. In other words, capitalism's to blame for these everyday kidnappings. Fair enough, but if the only way Jakubowicz can enlighten us is through empty, voyeuristic excess, should he really have bothered?
In Spanish with English subtitles.
