December Bonus Review: Captive
Is it process-y enough?
the true crime that's worth your time
“Hey, what’s this?” Every month, readers pick a property for Sarah to review; paid subscribers get to see what she thought of the chosen doc, podcast, book, etc. etc. December 2021’s review, flying over the deadline transom with a whopping half day to spare, is about a Netflix docuseries, and you can head into the archives for lots more bonus write-ups. (And there’s still time to vote for next month’s; scroll down to the red button!)
The crime
Eight different kidnap/hostage situations worldwide, including an Ohio prison riot, a Coca-Cola exec snatch in Rio, and Somali piracy.
The story
Netflix’s eight-part Captive is, here at the end of 2021, fine. In 2016, when it premiered, it probably seemed more remarkable; the shots of interviewees staring uncomfortably into the middle distance and/or fidgeting as a contemporary TV-news anchor voice-overs their trauma probably hadn’t become a genre cliché quite yet, and the filmmakers’ access to figures on both sides of the negotiation phone calls likely felt extraordinary, whereas today that access feels like the baseline that allows a pitch even to get heard.