The Betrayed – DVD Review
The Film:
The Betrayed, directed and written by Amanda Gusack, is the story of a mother, Jamie Taylor, played by Melissa George (30 Days of Night, The Amityville Horror, Dark City) and her son Michael (Connor Christopher Levins) that are involved in a car accident but when Jaimie wakes up, she is lying on a cold, wet concrete floor in a bare room. There is nothing in this room but a shower head in the ceiling and a grate for the water to run down into. She soon realizes that she has been taken prisoner and must do whatever it takes to keep her and her son safe. Her captor who is masked most of the film is played by Oded Fehr (Resident Evil).
The film really has one of those made-for-TV looks to it, with a seemingly smaller budget, and only one shooting location throughout the whole film: the shower room where Jaimie is locked up in and the hallway with another door that we are led to believe her son is locked up in. The film’s focus is on the psychological terror that plays upon Melissa George’s character, not knowing if her and her son will make it out of this predicament alive. The film tried to steadily build up the suspense and engage the viewer into becoming curious as to how this little thriller would end up playing itself out.
Quite frankly, the film just missed its mark. The scenes of Melissa George getting fed dog food one day with the option of drinking the water that was escaping from the leaky pipes in her prison and the next day getting some real food and a bottle of water just made the captors seem like softies. Granted, turning on a cold shower periodically may prove to be tiresome, annoying, and outright uncomfortable, but a film that starts off with a girl lying alone in an empty concrete room led me to believe that I may have popped in a Saw-ripoff or something and not a mild-mannered psychological television movie-of-the-week thriller that was not too thrilling, to say the least.
I loved Melissa George in 30 Days of Night, and her performance in The Betrayed was believable, but the whole film just kept me barely interested in the outcome of the characters. I just didn’t really care whether Jaimie (Melissa George) or her son were killed by the bad guys or not. The story did not evoke any emotion from the viewer and left me feeling as though I had just popped open an unopened can of pop to find out that it had a leak in it and had already gone completely flat. The film left me feeling unsatisfied and scenes were teetering on utter boredom. It felt more like a play than a movie, having only one room for every scene minus flashback scenes and the opening shot of the car accident right at the beginning of the film. The film only had a budget of several million and it truly shows and with an average story and not too much panache, I simply just can’t recommend this film to anyone unless there only other option is watching some infomercials, which sometimes can be quite amusing if one is in the right frame of mind.
The DVD:
Audio/Video: The sound quality was acceptable, but at times I had to raise my volume to hear some of the dialogue, as this film is not a very loud one. The quality of the picture looked decent and had a slight grayish tinge to the coloring, giving the whole picture a “gray” look at times.
Extras: This was a studio screener and did not have any extras whatsoever.
Conclusion: There are so many thrillers out there that achieve so much more than this film tries to achieve. Go find one of them and skipping The Betrayed would be in your best interest. The thrill in thriller has been removed and you have a lackluster attempt at making a smaller-budgeted film with a pretty dull story and not too much to offer for the viewer.
The Film: Rating: 
The DVD: Rating:
