Movie Review: Reckless (Artsploitation, 2015)

By James D.

Reckless, I am not sure if it is a direct remake or just a retelling of The Disappearance of Alice Creed. We meet in the opening minutes Laura Temming who wakes up in a nightmare no one would like to be waking up to. She was abducted and when she wakes up she is handcuffed and tied to a bed. The captors who have her are two masked men who strip off her clothes and put her in this track suit. It seems she comes from a wealthy family, and as you can guess our two captors have money on their mind. They take a picture of putting a knife to her throat to send to her father. The film has the same twists and turns the Creed film had, so if you are familiar with what goes on in that film, you have the gist of what you will get with this film. The film is subtitled which is fine for me, but the problem is the film plays out like a shot for shot take on the Creed film. I was hoping that we would get something different, it seems like they just re-shot the film scene by scene. Alice Creed I actually put in my top ten that year, I loved the surprises and the twists and turns that film gave me.

The film surprised even the most jaded viewer with its sense of not knowing where the film will be taking you. The problem is that I was upset that this film did not try to deviate from the original a little and maybe give us something a little different. If a twist is the same and you get fooled twice, there is something seriously wrong with the viewer. If you know the twist, it is no longer a twist if they copy the same twist. I am not taking anything away from the performances in this film; those are what kept my attention in this retelling. I loved the female lead; she really tried to improve on the original. The two henchmen were the issue; I felt that they were just mimicking what we got last time.

This is a rare miss by a studio who has hit pay dirt with every film they have put out. A miss for the simple fact that I was familiar with the source material, if you did not see Alice Creed, you would be more acceptable to liking this film. All in all, the female lead kept the film moving but other than her and a few situations, this film was just another failed remake.