Early on, Five Fingers seems like the worst traveler’s nightmare come true. An idealist young Dutchman, on a mission in Morocco to establish a food program for hungry children, is kidnapped from a bus and awakens blindfolded, hands and feet shackled to a chair. His captors appear to be Islamic terrorists, and they seem to mistake him for a CIA agent.
But nothing in Five Fingers is what it appears to be. The 2006 film, starring Ryan Phillippe as Martun, the Dutch idealist, and Laurence Fishburne as his captor, is out on DVD. It’s a twisting mind game, with a chess playing Islamic militant, wary and observant, probing into every word Martun utters, seizing at every inconsistency. Soon enough, we suspect he’s on to something. Perhaps Martun is more than he at first admits?
The dialogue-driven screenplay and sophisticated staging by writer-director Laurence Malkin approaches the level of slightly surreal theater. The torture Martun endures is horrific, but the story would be gripping and suspenseful without the occasional Saw moment.
