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Great Film overall

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

I know that most movies are fiction and that we are not only supposed to not believe what happens on screen, but we should also not expect the people nor their environment to conform to what occurs in real life. But that never stops us from hoping and wishing that the characters would just do what normal people would do. Or do what we believe they SHOULD do.This movie started off so strong then it took a turn toward what-the-heck-is-this-ville. The movie starts off with a woman escaping her captor who had her locked in a basement in the middle of nowhere. She gets the better of him but then has nowhere to go because the phones don't work (big surprise) and she doesn't have the keys to the van outside. She finally musters up the courage and the weaponry to demand the keys to the van to do what? To escape? To go to the police? No. To go round up the other captured girls because that makes the most sense. That's exactly what traumatized escapees do.The movie was a tale of revenge. I don't begrudge the movie for being about revenge, I just couldn't get over the timing and the method of revenge. Later we see why the movie creators took the immediate vigilante/savior approach but to me it was a case of trying to be too clever. Every movie has to have a twist. Too often vengeance movies sloppily put it all together. Either the motive for revenge is silly or the person seeking revenge is unlikely or the method of seeking revenge is unrealistic. The motive here was solid but as far as the person and more still the method... really wasn't in the plausibility ballpark. In all cases it detracts from the believability which detracts from the overall movie. This was a "I Spit on Your Grave" type with far less character, style and logic.

Every once in a while a small film comes along that you think will be just another pointless schlep up the same genre cliff, peaking at a dead end. Instead, it takes every expected detour, tosses it out the window, spits in your face and floors it, driving you straight off that well-worn cliff. And you love every minute of it.That's "Bound to Vengeance" in a nutshell and the "to" in the title is important.Jose Manuel Cravioto (whose previous directorial efforts consisted mostly of well-received shorts and docs) along with writers Rock Shaink and Keith Kjornes (who also acts here), have crafted a savage, viscerally memorable road trip. It's one that our protagonist Eve (Tina Ivlev, in a lithely nuanced performance) takes very willingly, even obsessively, after she clocks her scumbag white-slaver jailer Phil (Richard Tyson) with a brick and then makes him an offer he can't refuse: disclose the locations of the other girls (of whom he has Polaroids) who've been imprisoned as Eve just was --- or get shot in the face. And this is the catch: if you can get past the basic implausibility of someone who has just been starved, raped, and tortured for weeks deciding it's way more appealing to save other people than herself, then "Bound to Vengeance" has you, and good luck shaking or turning it off. And happily, there is a reason for Eve's zeal, but you won't understand that unless you watch the film, into the end credits.Then again, happily and amazingly, EVERYTHING in this film makes sense. The script is really THAT tight and that's odd for a white slavery flick. It's going to give you a lot of story and character development that are foreign in most of these types of films. It's not a white slavery film in the strictest sense of the word --- it isn't lurid or snuffy, it takes no pleasure in the degradation of women. It's quick, gritty, and violent and it appears to delight in its dark look, which (though nicely photographed) gives every frame the impression of being dredged in motor oil --- and that's a compliment. This kind of film SHOULD look that way. It doesn't treat this issue lightly or as a convenient vehicle for exploitational entertainment.Another offbeat element of BTV is the performance by the main perv Phil. Phil is not likable, he's a huge dirt-bag, but Tyson brings lots of interesting layers to the character, keeping you guessing, wondering, wanting to know more about him. As he says, he's just the zoo-keeper. There are bigger guys in charge. Or are there? You never really know until the final half of the film.And to round out our attachment to Eve (and break up and lighten the oppressive mood), we get snippets of her back-story in home movies shot from a phone, which become vitally important to the story in the end, as well as making Ivlev's character even more riveting.It's hard to predict what genre fans will make of this film. But, love it or hate it, I bet you won't forget the ride.

Bound to Vengeance (2015)Director José Manuel Cravioto's feature début is a grubby affair, the sort of film that you feel like needing a good scrub after. It delves into the all too prevalent and real horrors that are sexual abuse and human trafficking. Eve (Tina Ivlev), one such victim, turns on her keeper Phil (Richard Tyson) when he brings food to her. Displaying terrific survival instincts, and some savvy when it comes to turning the tables on Phil, she hoists the battered Phil out of the cellar she has kept her prisoner in for six months. Finding Polaroid photos of other girls, being stashed away for the same purpose, Eve demands that Phil tell her where each is being held. So begins a night of twists and turns for our spunky lead.Bound to Vengeance, originally entitled Reversal, is one short film, weighing in at seventy-five minutes of screen-time, excluding the end credits however you will not feel short changed. That lean running time is all that is needed to deliver a fast paced, edge-of-the-seat premise that would otherwise feel stretched. Every event that unfolds on-screen leads somewhere. There's no needless padding. If there is a grumble with the plotting it's that there's a couple of 'surprises' that aren't surprises really. You can see them coming a mile off but otherwise it's still an involving watch.Tina Ivlev, a near dead ringer for Jennifer Lawrence, is exceptional. Ivlev captures the mixture of vulnerability and aggressor, that the role calls for, and I for one couldn't take my eyes off her. A very strong female lead! Naming the lead character Eve is rather unsubtle but unlike most woman-revenge flicks she is well-rounded, rather than one note, and we are drawn into her plight, even if she is a little slow in guessing what the viewer has already sussed from the start. Richard Tyson, as Phil, can do no wrong in my eyes. He has always been a favourite actor of mine, I really enjoyed his turn in Big Bad Wolf (2006) and he's equally as nasty here.Human trafficking and sexual abuse are not subjects conducive to an evening of light entertainment. Fortunately Bound for Vengeance is focused more on the aftermath that occurs when one particular victim gets free and becomes the aggressor, rather than dwelling on the more sensationalistic aspects. Edge-of-the-seat, fast-paced and to-the-point this is an excellent calling card for director Cravioto and his lead Tina Ivlev. Recommended.Check out more of my reviews at www.mybloodyreviews.com

Saw this at the IMAGINE film festival 2015 in Amsterdam. To present my end conclusion upfront: I left disappointed. The very original plot elements could have made this film stand apart from others in the genre, where usually men are the ones in control and the women suffer. Plus that none of the rescued women thanked her, was a novel plot element too. But it could have been so much better, given all these ingredients.The core of the story, that Eve did not get the thanks she really deserved, is very clear, overly clear in fact along the remainder of the story after having freed herself. Even worse, all her well-intended actions to set the other captured women free, backfire one after another. If she had decided to be selfish, it would have prevented all the fallout we saw now, all pointing to her as the aggressor and guilty party as soon as law enforcement would get involved. In other words, if she had not gone to the trouble of rescuing all the others that were held captured, she could have lived happily ever after. I hope not to have read a morale between the lines here, nor a takeaway message.As a side note, I was particularly annoyed by the repetitious flashbacks with more or less the same images over and over again, showing Eve on a fun-fair with her boyfriend having a good time together. Along the story we get hints that the boyfriend played an unclear role, maybe not directly responsible for her abduction, but got heavily involved in that line of business later on. He insists, on the other hand, that he has searched her for half a year, and lost his job and house in the process. The fine details of what he precisely did (or not did) are not revealed to us. Could have been interesting, but this plot element was dearly missed too.