Caged No More is a Christian movie which premiered in 2016. The topic is human trafficking, also known as modern slavery.
Here is some basic information about this movie:
** Produced by Jarred Coates
** Written and directed by Lisa Arnold
** Based on the book Caged No More by Molly Venzke (2011)
** Run time: 97 minutes
The cast includes the following:
The first group
** Kevin Sorbo as Richard and as Jack
** Cynthia Gibb as Lottie – Richard’s wife
** Alan Powell as Wil – Richard and Lottie’s son (and the narrator)
** Cassidy Gifford as Skye – Jack’s daughter
** Abigail Duhon as Elle – Jack’s daughter
** Loretta Devine as Aggie Prejean – Skye and Elle’s nanny
** Debra Wilson as Leona – Aggie’s niece
The second group
** Anthony Evans as Tyler – Wil’s friend (in the US)
** Christos Vasilopoulos as Aeton – Wil’s friend (in Greece)
** George Kosturos as Galen – a young man in Greece
** Madelon Curtis as the Madam in Athens
The third group (cameo appearances)
** Kathy Lee Gifford – television host and Cassidy Gifford’s mother
** Bobby Jindal – governor of Louisiana 2008-2016 and presidential candidate in 2015
The story begins in Louisiana where Aggie was the black nanny of two white girls: Skye and Elle. Now the girls are grown up: Skye is 18 and Elle is 14, but Aggie is still close to them.
When their mother Macy dies of a drug overdose, Aggie is with her. Before dying, Macy makes Aggie promise that she will save the girls.
At first, Aggie does not quite understand what Macy means, but soon we learn that their father Jack has taken the girls to Greece where has sold Skye and where he is planning to do the same with Elle.
Jack owes a lot of money to a drug cartel. He is trying to raise money to pay his debt by selling his daughters into slavery.
Aggie talks to her niece Leona about the problem. What can they do? They have no resources to help. Then Aggie decides to contact Richard Du Londes, who is one of the richest men in the state, and his wife Lottie. Richard is by chance the twin brother of Jack, and he is a good man, while Jack is a bad man.
Richard and Jack are played by the same actor, Kevin Sorbo, who is best known for his role as Hercules in the long-running television series about the ancient Greek hero.
Richard and Lottie have the resources to help, and since Richard and Jack are twins, the young girls are actually family, so we can understand that they are ready to help in any way they can.
Richard and Lottie’s son Wil is a soldier, who has just returned from a tour in Iraq. This is very convenient, because this means that he is available to take part in a mission to rescue Elle.
Wil’s friend Tyler is a computer expert, who is able to determine that Jack and Elle are in Athens, the capital of Greece.
Skye is supposed to be studying at a university in London, but Tyler can see that she is not in London. Her emails from London are fake. Unfortunately, he cannot say where Skye is right now.
The rescue mission begins at once: Wil, Tyler and Aggie take the first plane to Greece. Wil has a Greek friend, Aeton, who used to be in the Special Forces.
This is very convenient, because he speaks the local language and he can guide Wil around the city.
Wil and Aeton discover that Richard plans to take Elle to an auction where she is going to be sold into slavery. Wil and Aeton plan to attend the auction and buy Elle’s freedom.
Meanwhile we learn that Skye is also in Athens. She is held against her will in a brothel which is controlled by a nasty woman, the Madam, who is also in charge of the upcoming auction.
When the auction takes place, it turns out that Skye is also for sale. Can Wil and Aeton rescue both of them?
They are up against an army of bad guys that work for the cartel that is responsible for human trafficking. The odds are against them. But they are the heroes, and in a movie like this, the bad guys have to lose. Both Skye and Elle are rescued and brought back to the US.
What do reviewers say about this movie?
Here are some results
** 55 percent = IMDb
** 74 percent = Rotten Tomatoes (the audience)
On Amazon there are at the moment more than 220 ratings of this product, more than 70 with reviews.
The average rating is 4.2 stars which corresponds to a rating of 84 percent.
If you ask me, all these ratings are too high. The positive reviews are totally undeserved. This movie has many flaws and some of them are quite serious.
The topic is important. The movie-makers may have good intentions, but as we know, good intentions do not guarantee a good result.
When we have to review a movie, a book or any work of art, the only thing that really matters is the result, and in this case the result is simply not good enough.
Here are some of the major flaws:
# 1. In the beginning of the movie Aggie tells her niece that Skye sent emails to her from London:
“I made copies of her emails before I deleted them. Now I cannot find the copies. How can I find her, when I don’t even know the name of her school?”
This passage raises two questions:
(1) Why did she delete the emails?
(2) Why can’t she find the copies?
As it turns out, it does not matter, one way or the other, because Skye is not in London. The emails from London were fake, probably sent by Jack.
# 2. Aggie has known the girls Skye and Ellis as well as their parents Jack and Macy for years. But apparently, when Macy dies, she does not know that Jack has a twin brother Richard. Why not? The twin is one of the richest men in the state and looks exactly like Jack. How can she not know this fact?
# 3. Skye is kept in a room in a brothel in Athens. The room is locked with a padlock. The evil Madam has the key. When a customer comes to see her, she unlocks the padlock, while the customer is looking. This is hardly realistic. Does the Madam want the customer to know that the girl is locked up? I do not think so.
# 4. The Greek actors speak Greek among each other, as they should. The Greek dialogue is not covered by subtitles, but it does not matter, because they do not say much and we can guess what they are saying when we look at them and hear the tone of their voices.
However, there is one exception, there is one scene where the Greek dialogue is switched to English.
This is the scene where the young man Galen comes to the brothel, hoping naively to rescue Skye. The nasty Madam tells him that she is already gone and that he will be sorry that he tried to get her out of there.
Why should she say this in English? It does not make any sense. The only reason is that the movie-makers want the viewers to know what she says here.
# 5. When we see Jack and Elle in their hotel room in Athens, Elle says she wants to call her mother in the US. But Jack says she cannot do this:
“I have told you it is too expensive to call home.”
This statement is very strange. We are in the 21st century. The Internet and Wi-Fi have been invented.
Elle has a phone. She can call for free, using Skype or a similar system. If she cannot call someone, she can at least send an email to someone in the US.
But in the movie, Jack is able to keep her totally isolated from the outside world even though she has a mobile phone. This is not realistic.
# 6. The general quality of the acting is low. Perhaps the worst case is that of Cassidy Gifford who plays Skye. She merely sits in the corner of her room and cries. She does not say anything.
During the auction, she appears on the catwalk. When she sees her sister, she calls out her name. This is the only time she speaks. The bad guys look very bad and the Madam is nasty. On the other hand, Wil and Aeton are really good.
The characters in this movie are stereotypes painted in black and white.
# 7. The quality of the plot and the story-line is also low. We are told human trafficking happens all over the world, including the US.
If it happens in the US, why did the movie-makers decide to place the main action in Greece? Perhaps they did not want the bad guys to be Americans.
Perhaps they wanted the bad guys to be foreigners, for instance Greeks, because this means the good guys can be Americans. In this movie there is only one bad American: the bad twin Jack.
# 8. The movie-makers tell us that human trafficking is an important topic. I agree. But I have a question: why must this topic be connected with the Christian religion?
Every five or ten minutes this movie has a reference to God and the Christian religion. If human trafficking is so important, if the movie-makers want the viewers to pay attention to this topic, why do they only appeal to Christians?
What about Buddhists or Jews or atheists? If human rights are universal, why is the message of this movie restricted to a Christian audience?
At the end of the movie there are statements by several Americans who are known as Christians and/or members of the political right-wing.
By connecting the movie with these people, the movie-makers may drive away other people who might agree with the message, but who do not like the fact that the message is placed in a Christian framework – as if Christians are the only persons who care about human rights.
# 9. The movie opens with some beautiful views of Louisiana, while the narrator, Wil, talks about life in this state. His opening line says:
“Life in Louisiana has always been easy.”
I wonder what he means.
For whom has life always been easy? For the white people who owned slaves? Or for the black people who were slaves?
Is it not strange that a movie which wants to condemn modern slavery begins by ignoring the fact that there once was slavery in the state where the story begins?
This movie received mixed reviews. Some are positive, while others are negative. Here is one of the negative reviews posted on Rotten Tomatoes:
“By far, one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Such an important topic. Raising awareness is crucial if we have any hope of ending this prolific practice.
But all this movie did, was to make a mockery of human trafficking. The acting, directing, fight scenes, lack of genuine emotion, was shameful.
How this movie ever made it into a theater I will never know. I am still shaking my head in disbelief. Not even good enough for a ‘made for TV movie.’ Disgraceful.”
[I have corrected a typo in this review.]
Here is a review from the Christian website Box Office Revolution: Christian Movie News and Reviews. On this website, movies are rated on three different criteria:
** The quality of the production = 0.5 point
** The quality of the plot and the story-line = 0.5 point
** The quality of the acting = 0.5 point
Total score = 1.5 out of 10 points (or 15 per cent, which corresponds to less than one star on Amazon)
The review offers the following conclusion:
“Caged No More is a sad production in many ways. It really could have been a great genre-breaking work based on an important topic, but it fell very short of the mark. It pretends to be something bigger than it is.
“Buried inside of it are good ideas, but they will likely be wasted as this movie is forgotten over time.
“We desperately need different genres of Christian/inspirational films, but this is not the way to go about it.
“Human trafficking is a highly important topic that needs to be exposed, but this isn’t the way. I hope a lesson can be learned here that will make a difference.”
This review is very interesting, because the conclusion is so surprising. We would expect a positive review. But this is not what we have. We have the opposite.
The reviewer wants to like this movie, because it is a Christian movie, and because the topic is so important, but in spite of these facts, it is not possible.
The reviewer tries three different angles, but it does not help. No matter how the reviewer looks at this movie, it is hopeless!
I understand the negative reviews and I agree with them. Good intentions do not guarantee a good result. Nor do good ideas. The only thing that matters is the result, and in this case the result is horrible.
This movie is fundamentally flawed. This is why it cannot get more than one star (20 percent). Even this poor rating is rather generous.
*****
Caged No More
A Christian movie about modern slavery
which premiered
in 2016
*****
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