Rapt

Rapt is a movie about the 1978 real-life kidnapping of French-Belgium industrialist and millionaire playboy Edouard-Jean Empain, but here the story is updated and turned into a gripping and contemporary thriller. Written and directed by Lucas Belvaux, the film was nominated for four César Awards.

When Stanislas Graff (Yvan Attal), a powerful and self-centred businessman, is taken hostage outside his mega-posh home on the eve of his visit to China (accompanying the French president), it’s not only his life that descends into weeks of torture and humiliation. For while Graff is subjected to physical torture, it’s his wife (Anne Consigny) who is gradually subjected to psychological torture when the investigating police find out that the apparently clean-cut hubby not only had several affairs, but also squandered private as well as company money in Monaco’s casinos, running up huge gambling debts in the process. As the kidnappers demand the not-to-be-sniffed-at sum of 50 million Euros in exchange for Graff’s release, his family and colleagues not only ask the question what a man’s life is really worth, but whether a selfish and irresponsible person like him will actually be missed…

Rapt is as much emotional drama as it is tense thriller, but it’s Attal’s portrayal as an arrogant and subsequently dislikeable human being that puts this film on a different level.
The film is in French language, with English subtitles.