Jennifer (daughter of David) Lynch's last US movie, 2008's Surveillance, featured an impressive cast and a lot of violence, but a poor plot and a hideously misjudged twist ending. So in the four years since, has Jennifer's skills at storytelling improved any? Unfortunately not, as Chained also features an impressive cast and a lot of violence, but comes with an even worse plotline and a staggeringly weak ending.
Sarah (Julia Ormond), Brad (Jake Weber) and their young son (Evan Bird) are a perfect, happy little family, until one day Sarah and the young boy are kidnapped by Bob (Vincent D'Onofrio); a psychopathic, homicidal taxi-driver. Bob promptly murders Sarah, but keeps the young boy - who he renames “Rabbit” - chained up in his house. Initially he just uses Rabbit to serve him food and bury the women he brings home to kill, but then the movie jumps forward 9 years, and Bob decides he wants Rabbit (now played by Eamon Farren) to follow in his murderous footsteps.
From the very first frame, Chained is a miserable slog to endure. This movie does not want you to enjoy yourself and it is not here to entertain you. It is here to upset you and make you feel uneasy for a seemingly endless 94 minutes. Most of the movie takes place within the confines of one room, adding to the sense of isolation and hopelessness that Rabbit must feel, and Farren does a good job of making you feel for the vulnerable and subservient slave to a serial killer. He is overshadowed by D'Onofrio however, who brings a hulking physicality, shattered psyche and extremely odd accent to his role.
Unfortunately these potentially interesting characters are wasted in a completely unoriginal plot that feels like it was written by a particularly grumpy teenager. The plot takes forever to get going, and once it does it lurches forward at a snail's pace. Then there's the final ten minutes, which is a sudden blizzard of events and two (not one, TWO!) god-awful plot twists that everyone in the audience will have seen coming from a mile away. Nasty, inane and at times downright stupid, a couple of good performances isn't enough to recommend this movie to anyone other than the hard-core depressives.
