Taped is a Dutch thriller that is gripping from the very first frame to the last. Brutal and breathless, it’s not hard to see why director Diedrik Van Rooijen has been chosen to helm the remake of the Alfred Hitchcock classic The Birds.
There are certainly elements of the Hitchcock style in Taped. The film follows the journey of ill-fated Dutch tourists Saar (Susan Visser) and Johan (Barry Atsama), a married couple who have travelled to Buenos Aires to try and salvage their fraught relationship. They are filming their trip on a camcorder to show their daughter back home, but wind up recording and witnessing a policeman committing murder. From this moment they are on the run.
The set-up might appear to make Taped an ideal ‘found footage’ film, however it only exploits elements of this style while remaining more conventionally constructed. The threateningly foreign atmosphere of the situation is well captured and the difficulties of language barriers and alien settings serve to heighten the tension. Visser and Atsama create believable characters that are engaging; you become invested in their struggles and desperate for the couple to succeed. The complications in their relationship add an extra dimension to the action and trials as they try to survive and escape. There is an enjoyable balance of action and suspense; the more violent scenes are not overdone but make sure the danger to the characters feels real and immediate.
While essentially Taped is a classic chase thriller, it executes its premise well and delivers an hour and a half of blisteringly intense viewing. There are moments, as perhaps in any film of this genre, where the main characters are frustrating in their actions, but for the most part their responses to the nightmarish circumstances are realistic and the suspense is tautly held throughout. Van Rooijen has proven that he can craft a film that delivers the promise of its genre.
Review Score: FOUR STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Taped is available on DVD and iTunes now.
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