By John Corrado

★★ (out of 4)

Today, Paramount is releasing the spiritual drama Captive on DVD.  The film recounts the true story of convict Brian Nichols (David Oyelowo), who escaped confinement and went on a shooting spree, before forcing himself into the house of Ashley Smith (Kate Mara), a single mother and struggling drug addict who became his hostage, but helped deescalate him by reading passages from the self-help book The Purpose Driven Life.

This is an interesting story that has inspired many and deserves to be told, and the performances of David Oyelowo and Kate Mara are expectedly solid.  But as a whole, Captive doesn’t have enough suspense or dramatic heft to really pull it off, and ends up feeling like a rote TV movie.  Although it’s not bad, and will have a place in church libraries, it largely feels like a good story and great actors in search of a better overall movie.

The DVD also includes a pair of featurettes.

Captive is 96 minutes and rated PG.