Held for Ransom

2000 "They Pay or They Die"
4.5| 1h28m| NR| en| More Info
Released: 14 November 2000 Released
Producted By: Splendid Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

Held for Ransom is a 2000 direct-to-video film about five high-school students that are kidnapped and held for ransom in a remote swamp area in Florida. It was directed and written by Lee Stanley based on the novel by Lois Duncan.

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Reviews

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
Hulkeasexo it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.
Clarissa Mora The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.
Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
scotthumphries Yes, the popular opinion on this board is correct - despite some good acting (with what they had to work with, I mean), this film is rubbish. It's nothing you have not seen before except with prettier kids.Like another reviewer I only got it see Morgan Fairchild and Joan Van Ark, both of whom look good but have very small parts. Fairchild looks lovely but has only 3 scenes; Van Ark plays her standard quivering mother with a similar number of scenes - she does not even get to react to the "twist" at the end! As for Dennis Hopper, it's a part he could play in his sleep. Obviously this was one of those "pay the mortgage" films.To be fair though, some of the music on the soundtrack is okay.
ljs00b This movie is certainly not a box office wonder, however it is relatively entertaining. As someone who has seen their fair share of movies that should never under any circumstances been viewed by the public, I can say that this movie is not one of them. The plot is fairly well contrived, with a delightful twist at the end that I was not expecting. The actors do a fair job, not worthy of an Oscar, but tolerable. The suspense is believable, I in fact found myself yelling at Bruce to run. It can suck you in if you go into it, not expecting to see the greatest thriller of all times, but simply...well I guess the best way to describe it is Hallmark Hall of Fame quality, only its a thriller, not a drama, and there is no cheesy love lesson at the end.
morakanabad Wow... nine comments thus far, and four of them are positive. (Well, maybe three... it's hard to tell if that "4/5" rating is supposed to be read as "four out of five" or "four-fifths of a point", presumably on a scale of 1 to 7319.) Consider this my attempt at tipping the balance back a bit closer to where it should be, namely in the "If you value your sanity or self-respect, for gawd's sake stay away from this load of crap!" category.If I had to say something positive about the movie, though, I would point out that my roommate and I had a perfectly good time trying to remember what those bayou-trash boats that look like they have lettuce centrifuges nailed on sideways behind the driver's seat are called, and that we enjoyed hurling abuse and obscenities at the screen throughout the movie. Oh, and it also ended before the tape ran out.Bad things: not only does the teen starlet who has to strip down to her underwear not get mauled by baboons or fed to the Sarlacc, but you're also forced to spend the better part of an hour pretending that you are going to be surprised when the unscrupulous parental unit with the failing business turns out to be the guy responsible for the brilliant kidnapping plot that involved traveling into the swamp to find some toothless crazies who will kill a couple of people in order to net himself a tidy ransom. Also, I don't believe that any of the cast or crew were injured by flying circular-saw blades during the making of this movie, and that's an injustice of cosmic proportions.
jbiglit If the "F" word were deleted from this film, there would be no dialog. Actually, it's a "B" movie, which shows how far Dennis Hopper has fallen. Of all the films that Hopper has made with twenty-somethings and teens, this one is incredibly weak.There is no plot and the storyline is hopeless. There is a minimal twist at the end, but it appears to be so ridiculously inconsequential that it lacks any true meaning.Hopper plays a character that is supposed to be brutal, but even that element is watered-down. No sex, no nudity, and violence in this film amounts to Hopper slapping around the oldest kid from "Home Improvement."A dud? You betcha. Suspense? Not even.