DVD Review and GIVEAWAY: Captive {ends 1/23}
*Disclosure: Many thanks to Propeller Consulting, LLC for providing the prize for this giveaway. Choice of winners and opinions are 100% my own and not influenced by monetary compensation. I did receive a sample of the product in exchange for this review and post.
I had briefly heard about Captive when it hit theaters, since there was a screening of it, but I had been unable to attend. Religious movies tend to be hit or miss for me, but this was actually one of the best I've seen in quite a while, and it's based on true events as well.
About the movie:
Based on a miraculous story about the power of faith, Captive is an "amazing, inspiring" drama about the spiritual collision of two lost souls, Brian Nichols (Golden Globe Nominee David Oyelowo), on the run from police and desperate to make contact with his newborn son, takes recently widowed mother Ashley Smith (Kata Mara) hostage in her own apartment. Fearing for her life and desperately hoping to see her daughter again, she turns to Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life for guidance. Ashley and her captor face a crossroads where they discover hope and light in the midst of despair in the moving film that Dick Rolfe, CEO, Dove Foundation hailed as "powerful."
About the DVD:
DVD Release Date: January 5, 2016
Runtime: 96 minutes
Rating: PG-13 (for mature thematic elements involving violence and substance abuse)
There are over 30 minutes of bonus content on this DVD including Journey Through Darkness: Filming Captive and Faith and The Purpose Driven Life. Also included with this DVD is a Digital HD copy that can be instantly streamed and downloaded.
The beginning of this movie will immediately catch your attention, as it focuses on Brian Nicholas escaping from prison. I really liked this film overall, but my big complaint is that we don't get a ton of backstory on the characters; we know why Nichols is in prison, and Ashley's story (widowed, child living at aunt's, attends Narcotics Anonymous-type meetings), but I would have liked to have known more.
At the end of the film, there's an Oprah clip with the real Ashley, who tells her story, but we never really know if we should be sympathetic to Brian Nichols' plight or not; he tells (movie) Ashley at one point that he was innocent of what he was accused of, and that the woman (who he had been dating for 7 years) had cheated on him; however, he also kills/injures a lot of people on his way out of the prison. Oyelowo plays the character of Brian masterfully, in that he's very mysterious and stony-faced; you almost want to root for him, in a weird way, after hearing his story, but at the same time you know he's a murderer, even if his story about the assault was true.
I'd give this movie a Yes review and 3.5/5 stars, because it kept my attention the whole way through - I was actually reformatting a computer when I watched it, too, and I was figuring I wouldn't be fully immersed in it, to be honest, but instead I found myself wondering what was going to happen next in the film.
Captive is currently out on DVD/Digital HD, and can be purchased here.
GIVEAWAY:
One of my lucky readers will win a DVD/Digital HD combo of Captive!
Enter via the widget below. Giveaway will end on Saturday, January 23rd, at 11:59pm EST, and winner will be contacted the next day via email and have 24 hours to respond, or an alternate winner will be chosen.
U.S. and Canadian residents only, please.
One entrant per mailing address, per giveaway. If you have won a prize from our sponsor Propeller / FlyBy Promotions in the last 30 days, you are not eligible to win; or, if you have won the same prize on another blog, you are not eligible to win it again. Winner is subject to eligibility verification.
Good luck!
Captive DVD
About the movie:
Based on a miraculous story about the power of faith, Captive is an "amazing, inspiring" drama about the spiritual collision of two lost souls, Brian Nichols (Golden Globe Nominee David Oyelowo), on the run from police and desperate to make contact with his newborn son, takes recently widowed mother Ashley Smith (Kata Mara) hostage in her own apartment. Fearing for her life and desperately hoping to see her daughter again, she turns to Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life for guidance. Ashley and her captor face a crossroads where they discover hope and light in the midst of despair in the moving film that Dick Rolfe, CEO, Dove Foundation hailed as "powerful."
About the DVD:
DVD Release Date: January 5, 2016
Runtime: 96 minutes
Rating: PG-13 (for mature thematic elements involving violence and substance abuse)
There are over 30 minutes of bonus content on this DVD including Journey Through Darkness: Filming Captive and Faith and The Purpose Driven Life. Also included with this DVD is a Digital HD copy that can be instantly streamed and downloaded.
My thoughts:
There are two A-listers who are the leads in this film - David Oyelowo, and Kate Mara, and both were excellent here. Mara plays Ashley, a former druggie whose 5-year-old daughter is currently living with Ashley's aunt, since the state took her away from Ashley, who also recently became a widower. Oyelowo plays Brian Nichols, a man who was in prison for assaulting a woman and who has just escaped, killing a judge and severely beating a prison guard on his way out. Nichols needs somewhere to hide and he randomly chooses Ashley's place, though in the end they both learn lessons from each other.
The beginning of this movie will immediately catch your attention, as it focuses on Brian Nicholas escaping from prison. I really liked this film overall, but my big complaint is that we don't get a ton of backstory on the characters; we know why Nichols is in prison, and Ashley's story (widowed, child living at aunt's, attends Narcotics Anonymous-type meetings), but I would have liked to have known more.
At the end of the film, there's an Oprah clip with the real Ashley, who tells her story, but we never really know if we should be sympathetic to Brian Nichols' plight or not; he tells (movie) Ashley at one point that he was innocent of what he was accused of, and that the woman (who he had been dating for 7 years) had cheated on him; however, he also kills/injures a lot of people on his way out of the prison. Oyelowo plays the character of Brian masterfully, in that he's very mysterious and stony-faced; you almost want to root for him, in a weird way, after hearing his story, but at the same time you know he's a murderer, even if his story about the assault was true.
I'd give this movie a Yes review and 3.5/5 stars, because it kept my attention the whole way through - I was actually reformatting a computer when I watched it, too, and I was figuring I wouldn't be fully immersed in it, to be honest, but instead I found myself wondering what was going to happen next in the film.
Captive is currently out on DVD/Digital HD, and can be purchased here.
GIVEAWAY:
One of my lucky readers will win a DVD/Digital HD combo of Captive!
Enter via the widget below. Giveaway will end on Saturday, January 23rd, at 11:59pm EST, and winner will be contacted the next day via email and have 24 hours to respond, or an alternate winner will be chosen.
U.S. and Canadian residents only, please.
One entrant per mailing address, per giveaway. If you have won a prize from our sponsor Propeller / FlyBy Promotions in the last 30 days, you are not eligible to win; or, if you have won the same prize on another blog, you are not eligible to win it again. Winner is subject to eligibility verification.
Good luck!
Captive DVD
