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List Price: $14.94 | | Label: Sony Pictures
Salesrank: 41308
Released: September 16, 2008 |
| Our Price: $2.94 |
| Used Price: $0.09 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Deep undercover in a brutal criminal organization, FBI agent Kevin Cole (Cole Hauser) must use extreme methods to prove himself. Ordered by the mysterious crime boss Ziggy to track down stolen millions, Cole gets to work on the mob's accountant (Laurence Fishburne). But as he starts turning the screws, the mind games begin. Now who's controlling who? Enter the ruthless world of organized crime, where you're only as good as your last lie. Also starring Emmanuelle Chriqui (You Don't Mess with the Zohan).
Description of Tortured:
Director-writer Nolan H. Lebovitz’s Tortured is definitely not for the squeamish. But while there’s a good deal of the titular activity going on here, not much of it is gratuitous, and none at all is as stomach-turningly graphic as what can be found in, say, the Saw and Hostel series. What’s more, in addition to a stellar cast, this movie actually has a story worth paying attention to. Jumping between the present and the recent past, we follow the exploits of FBI agent Kevin Cole (Cole Hauser) who, using the alias Jimmy Vaughn, manages to penetrate the notorious criminal organization run by a mysterious figure known only as Ziggy. After undergoing extensive torture to prove his own mettle, "Vaughn" is assigned the grim task of breaking one Archie Green (Laurence Fishburne), Ziggy’s accountant, who’s suspected of stealing millions from the big boss. It’s not pretty, as Vaughn spends days pulling off his prisoner’s finger and toenails, administering electric shocks, and other repellent acts; unsurprisingly, Agent Cole, tough dude though he is (he’s already served honorably in Afghanistan), is disturbed by this grim assignment and its collateral consequences, leading to problems with his literally clueless girlfriend (Emmanuelle Chriqui) and several trips to the Bureau shrink (Kevin Pollak). But that’s not all: Archie Green, it turns out, is not what he seems; nor is Cole’s father (James Cromwell), the FBI director with a few secrets of his own. It all comes together at the end, when Lebovitz serves up a couple of somewhat credibility-defying but very surprising final twists. Tortured has its share of clichéd moments ("I don’t even recognize you anymore!" says the girlfriend before storming out the door, packed bags in tow), but it also has a dark, stylish, almost minimalist vibe, and more than enough tension and suspense to keep you hooked. A decent "making of" featurette is the principal bonus feature. --Sam Graham
Tortured Reviews:
TORTURED is the word for the viewer!!! 
2009-11-29 - Tortured is a 2008 film starring Cole Hauser, Laurence Fishburne and James Cromwell. I have never sat through a film that was hell bent on delivering a shockingly surprise ending by abandoning all common sense. Spoiler alert! Do not read further if you are planning on viewing this film...we are asked to believe that an extremely powerful & wealthy man (Fishburne) would subject himself to excrutiating torture, and possible execution, in order to get revenge on the man (Cromwell) who was indirectly responsible for the death of his daughter, by killing the man's son (Hauser - the same man who was responsible for his torture). In truth, all this powerful man had to do was to have Hauser abducted and have him tortured and killed. Simple. Instead, we are led down a convoluted path to the ultimate preposterous ending. Don't waste your time!
Great movie with a twist 
2009-07-15 - I may be naive, but I never saw the ending coming. Great movie, really great.
Good movie, ridiculous bad ending
2009-06-17 -
I liked the movie but the ending really really ruined it. It was like they discovered there wasn't much movie budget left and they needed to quickly wrap things up and close the story:
********** Major Ending Spoiler **********
- Kevin convinces his FBI colleagues to start a rescue operation
- Ziggy has FBI inside information and knows there is a rescue operation coming
- Archie Green, the person Kevin is torturing is killed off and his body is dumped in a bag under the torture room
- Ziggy takes plastic surgery to take Archie's place at the FBI rescue operation
- Ziggy let his three henchmen get killed by the FBI, somehow this fits in master plan
- Ziggy can somehow predict the future and knows in this FBI operation he isn't going to get hurt first by Kevin before he gets rescued
- Ziggy can also predict Kevin's dad takes them three to another place where he can steal a gun from Kevin
- Ziggy then like all criminal masterminds do explains how he had this planned for years, even watched Kevin grow up
- Ziggy wants to shoot Kevin in front of his dad's eyes, just to get back at Kevin's dad for killing his daughter
- Kevin's dad jumps in front of the bullet that was meant for Kevin
- Ziggy then tells Kevin how the are alike and how Kevin should join his evil empire
- Ziggy can predict and plan all these things but somehow he can't predict that he can't convince Kevin and that Kevin will want to kill him
The writers knew this was a ridiculous ending and try to save it by a mysterious ending: Kevin walks out of the FBI office and gets a phone call "I've got a letter from Ziggy, i'm supposed to answer to you, am I speaking to the right person?"
The ending is so ridiculous that it really ruined what could have been a very good movie.
Here a some major flaws:
- Ziggy is (almost) a billionaire: 25 years ago he already had lots of shops, restaurants, etc... all started with his drug money. If you can run a criminal drugs empire for 25 years you'll make tens of millions every year and you have hundreds of henchmen doing your dirty stuff like assassinations, drive by shootings, kidnappings, etc... Ziggy is so careful in the entire movie, has all these goons to protect him and then takes the risk of showing himself. What the hell is Ziggy doing?
- Ziggy knows everything about Kevin and his dad, with all those millions he could just hire armies of goons to kill them both
- Ziggy knew from the start Kevin was FBI, after the coffee shop in the beginning of the movie he could already have killed Kevin, chopped him in pieces and sent him in parts to his father. That would hurt his father more than to shoot Kevin in front of his father.
- Ziggy has plastic surgery to make himself look and talk like a black man? No offense to black people but do you really think a white drug empire kingpin worth a few hundreds millions dollars doing this?
- Shouldn't Ziggy just enjoy the good upper class life in his big villa with his beautiful wive, mistresses and children and have this tiny ant Kevin and his dad crushed by his goons?
- Why waste your valuable time with such a ridiculous plan to destroy your enemy?
I could go on for hours about all the flaws in the ending, but this should be enough explanation.
Good movie, worthless ending.
Great twist, but some parts are tough to watch 
2008-12-24 - I watched this movie with no expectations, mainly because I had never heard about it. However, as soon as the movie starts, it gets very intriguing. The movie is not hard to watch because it is boring, but because of some torture methods that appear to hurt very much. The movie does jump around between time periods a bit, but they piece the movie together very well if you pay attention. The ending is built up very well and I enjoyed the twist. I would highly reccomend watching or buying this.
A decent thriller that flew under the radar... 
2008-09-16 - This title had received no advertising and very little coverage in the ordering publications so I carried few since the cast seemed solid. I was pleasantly surprised.
Cole Hauser leads the film as our undercover FBI agent infiltrating one of the oldest and largest crime syndicates still in operation. James Cromwell plays the FBI Director/dad of our main character, and Lawrence Fishburne plays the tortured victim/hostage of the bad guys. Emmanuelle Chriqui, Robert LaSardo and Jon Cryer round out a recognizable supporting cast who all perform with adequate prose for their shorter roles. The story follows the agent as he has to torture this prisoner to gain the trust of the syndicate. The film leap frogs between time periods of the agent's mission, with graphic depictions of disgusting torture in between.
This movie earns the R rating many times over for violence, and the inevitable B movie feel filters through once in awhile. But Cole (who I liked in Dirty) carries the film nicely as Fishburne and Cromwell play their usual characters from many other films without a problem. I swear LaSardo gets 20 more tattoos between each film - cannot see his skin anymore, good art though. Customers keep asking for a good thriller with any surprising twists (instead of predictable and dumb), and I think this title can keep the masses happy this week.
