When producer Mimi Polk Gitlin and director Luis Mandoki formed their production company, Mandolin Entertainment, Mandoki was looking for a thriller that would offer him a chance to broaden his repertoire of romantic dramas. Still, when he first picked up the script for Trapped which was given to him by his partner, he thought he would only have time to read just a couple of pages and pass. But then, he says, "I started reading. I couldn't stop. It was a real page-turner. It reminded me, in terms of tone, of my two favourite movies, Deliverance and Straw Dogs--the intensity and rawness of it."

The next morning, Mandoki called his partner with a resounding "yes."

Trapped is the work of novelist Greg Iles, whom Gitlin had discovered through composer Glen Ballard. With Ballard and Gitlin supervising, a revised first draft of the script was written. It was Iles' first screenplay. Says Gitlin, "I like to stick with the original writer if at all possible, and obviously Greg is an incredibly talented writer. And, for his first script, he did an amazing job. Some people don't make the transition [from novelist to screenwriter] as easily as others, but it seemed to come very naturally to him."

Iles was born in 1960 in Germany, where his father ran the U.S. Embassy medical clinic during the height of the Cold War. He spent his youth in Natchez, Mississippi, and graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1983. Iles performed for several years as a rock musician in the band Frankly Scarlet before taking up writing. His first novel, Spandau Phoenix, a thriller about Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess, was published in 1993 and became his first of six New York Times best-sellers.

What impressed both Gitlin and Mandoki, and later executive producer Neil Canton, was Iles' ability to take an established genre and give it a new look. "It's a really good genre piece," commends Canton. "I thought [the 24 hour angle] was a really clever plan. If genre movies are done well, then audiences will respond and this had such a great twist to it."

For Mandoki, it was also the depth of the characters and their psychological transformation that stood out for the director: "You look for comfort, and in comfort you get lost. You forget what life is really about and you take the most gifts for granted. Then something bad happens, and it's a message from God: Wake up! People live everyday lives, and all of a sudden something happens and parts of themselves that are hidden come out--courageous, powerful sides."

This psychological U-turn is mirrored in the story's plot line. Charlize Theron, who plays the perfect wife in this perfect family, comments on this layered approach. "The family is on the brink of a huge success with Will's breakthrough medicine," she says, "and their lives are about to change drastically. You see that there's this change about to happen, but you have no idea what's really lying in store for them. And it turns out to be this ultimate test of what's really important to them."

Mandolin had a first look deal with Propaganda, who backed the project and provided funds to option the book and script. Then when The Canton Company became involved, the financing was put together with Senator and Columbia, the whole thing came together at what in Hollywood was record speed.

With the film's emphasis on character development, Mandoki was, in the opinion of Charlize Theron, also the perfect choice. "He's an actor's director," she explains. "He pays attention to character. I knew that with him you would have some emotional investment in these people."

In stark contrast to the domestic bliss of Theron's Karen and the rest of the Jennings family is the hell on earth and damaged psyches of the Hickeys. Tormented by a past tragedy, Joe Hickey reasons away the pain he inflicts on others with a fantasy of heroic vengeance. For him, his actions are not guided by infantile revenge but a greater, more humane love for an innocent victim. As Mandoki explains, Hickey is "not a cliché, cartoon bad guy character. He's a very complex guy."

It was important, therefore, to find an actor who could see beyond the simple villain role and effectively portray Hickey's depth. Luckily for the filmmakers, Kevin Bacon accepted the role. With several complex "bad guy" characters under his belt, there was a confidence that Bacon could bring to the screen and to the multiple layers of his character.

Bacon and Mandoki talked at great length about Hickey's motivation. As Bacon tells it, Hickey "is doing things in the film that I find so despicable. And yet in my conversations with Luis, we talked about trying to get inside this guy's head and humanize him in a strange kind of way."

"I have kids, and the idea of a kidnapping, of taking a child from another person, is such a heinous crime. It's every parent's worst nightmare and one of the worst things you could possibly do. The interesting thing about this character is that, in his mind, he believes he's doing the right thing. Luis and I talked about that a lot. Right before every take he'd say, 'Just remember, you're the hero in your mind. These actions you're taking are, in your head, heroic.' That's part of the tragedy of this guy. He's not doing it for the money. He's living with a tremendous amount of pain and anger and this kidnapping is an extension of that."

Furthermore, Hickey's pathology is never cheapened or weakened by resorting to the cinematic cliché of the antagonist foiled by his own stupidity or lack of control. As Bacon points out, Hickey is "not a schooled person, but he's smart. He believes very much in the psychological power that he can have over his victims, and that all he needs to use is the threat of violence, not the violence itself. He always takes the wife in the family; he plays power games with them. And he prides himself on tearing down their resistance and strength until they're putty in his hands."

Production designer Richard Sylbert claims the house's location on the water was a key factor in its selection because it helped to mimic the themes within the film. "The idea of this movie was to keep pushing this image of water and the mirror. In the movie, there's a mirror being held up between these two marriages and two kinds of lives: the perfect family with the perfect child living this comfortable, successful, 'aren't we gonna be famous' life against this other couple who had been driven to a life of crime by painful personal tragedy."

The technical challenges were exacerbated by Mandoki's desire to shoot "very intense and close." Those familiar with Mandoki's style will be surprised by Trapped, in which Mandoki moves in a very different direction, making use of extensive handheld and zoom camera work. Defending this radical approach, Mandoki says, "It had to be very intense. We had to create an atmosphere with the camera that translates the intensity of what's going on because what's interesting is what's happening inside the characters.

"We had to push each other to be raw and unconventional with this movie. The first day of shooting, Piotr said, 'We're gonna break all the rules.' One way was to use the zoom a lot in a very irregular way. Another way was to use a lot of top lighting so that we could move the camera 360º whenever we wanted to."

The production culminated in the filming of a heart-stopping finale with several unique requirements. Interestingly, for all but the finale, each of the three pairs of actors (Theron/Bacon, Townsend/Love, Vince/Fanning) never saw the others. Since the actors were filming in different locations on different days, by production's end most of the cast had yet to be introduced. It was, especially for Mandoki, like filming three movies in one. Again, though, this production anomaly reflected the film's content and turned out to be a blessing in disguise, helping the actors bring their characters to life. "With them not really knowing what was going on with us and us not knowing what was going on with them," explains Theron, "it really helped you as an actor because you didn't have to pretend about the mystery of it all."

director luis mandoki

In a short time, director Luis Mandoki, a native of Mexico, has evolved to become one of Hollywood's foremost filmmakers. Known for his ability to gain the confidence of his actors, he creates a trust that allows them to deliver performances different from and beyond their own expectations. His first American feature was White Palace, which he followed with the comedy Born Yesterday, When A Man Loves A Woman,  and Message in a Bottle. Now a resident of Santa Barbara, California, Mandoki was born and raised in Mexico City where he became a student of fine arts, an interest he pursued at the San Francisco Art Institute and the London College of Printing. While attending the London International Film School, he directed his first short film, Silent Music, which won a major award at the International Amateur Film Festival at the l976 Cannes Film Festival.  He returned to Mexico to direct several short films and documentaries for the Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Conacine, SA, and Centro de Produccion de Cortometraje. In l980, Mandoki won the Ariel Award (Mexico's Oscar®) for his short film, The Secret. His first feature, Motel, was chosen to represent Mexico in five film festivals.

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