I recently had the opportunity to get this movie for free from Amazon.com if I promised to review it.  I figured that wasn’t much of an obligation, and so I agreed.  I had remembered briefly hearing … reading … something about The Disappearance of Alice Creed, so I figured why not?  Though I wasn’t terribly familiar with it, a free movie is a free movie, right?

To the point, I was not disappointed in the least.

The Disappearance of Alice Creed is a British film that, while steady and subtle, somehow managed to thrill me and keep me on the edge of my seat for its entire duration.

The plot would appear rather simple.  Two fastidious men kidnap a woman in the hopes of getting a large payoff from her father.  The kidnappers are cold, calculating, and go about their business efficiently with barely a word spoken.  However, this is more than a simple ransom story.  There are twists and turns of the like that I never saw coming, and while the film features only three characters with a minimal of settings, by the end of the movie the viewer feels as though they’ve been on an odyssey.

I’d like to mention that the three actors – Gemma Aterton, Eddie Marson, and Martin Compston – gave wildly brave and committed performances.  This cannot have been a comfortable movie for any of them to have shot, yet I utterly believed in their characters and the storyline thanks to such devotion to their craft.  They made this film the thought-provoking work that it is.

The Disappearance of Alice Creed is far more than it appears to be on the surface, but it’s likely that most people won’t give away any of the disturbing revelations for fear of ruining the film for those who have yet to watch it.

This is a quiet, nuanced film that will linger in your thoughts long after you’ve finished it.