from its opening 'shot', Secuestro Express takes its captive audience at gunpoint on a heart-pounding tour of crime, corruption and class war in downtown Caracas.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 15, 2007

From beginning to end, Secuestro Express proves an obnoxious mess determinedly employing the kidnapping conceit it laments to stimulate popcorn movie sentiments.

| Aug 19, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 24, 2006

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 24, 2006

Impeccably directed, tightly-wound and extremely tense thriller with some neat twists and a healthy dose of social commentary thrown in for good measure.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 8, 2006

This film gives one vision of what anarchy is like, on a small scale, at least.

| Original Score: B | Feb 25, 2006

From a filmmaking angle, it's a movie to be studied, but from a writing angle, it could have been so much better.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 5, 2006

As a kidnap thriller, Secuestro Express is a complete bore, but what's worse is that it occasionally seems to imagine it's making a point.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Dec 6, 2005

An unpleasant watch that showed how sleazy films can get in trying to imitate reality and Tarantino.

| Original Score: C- | Dec 1, 2005

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 29, 2005

A well-intentioned copy but one that holds much promise for its first-time director.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 15, 2005

Like swimming in sewage for an hour an a half--which may be the intention, but is still neither a terribly pleasurable or edifying experience.

| Original Score: C | Sep 13, 2005

There were times when this movie gave me chills to be a witness to such a horrible experience.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 12, 2005

| Original Score: B | Sep 10, 2005

Secuestro Express is a wake-up call for wealthy clubgoers who party in the slums of Caracas. For anyone else, it's bad pulp that glorifies 'gangster' culture.

Full Review | Aug 10, 2005

The film may have pretentions to social relevance ... and it may style itself as fearless realism, but it's basically 90 minutes of sadism directed toward the audience.

Full Review | Aug 7, 2005

The bad guys are some of the most evil characters I've seen outside of a Nazi uniform and they all have a great time doing it.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 7, 2005

It's a skillfully made film, but not especially fun to watch

Full Review | Aug 5, 2005

Artfully raw and surprisingly accomplished, Venezuelan writer-director Jonathan Jakubowicz's first fiction feature is an exploitation movie in the best sense of the term.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 5, 2005

Secuestro Express seems less interested in dramatizing the crushing inequities of that nation than in serving up hefty doses of sadism and titillation.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Aug 5, 2005