Crushed review – Steve Oram is priestly lead in harrowing Bangkok-set child-abduction thriller

A priest investigates his daughter’s kidnapping in Thailand in this Paul Schrader-esque inquiry into spiritual nihilism

‘He’s American, a little bit overweight, sweaty, a little bit camp, creepy.” As far as descriptions of border-hopping paedophiles go, this seems a little on the nose. So it’s not surprising when the man who was enquiring, priest Father Daniel (Steve Oram), responds: “Are you making this up?” Featuring a seedy child-abduction situation in Bangkok, Simon Rumley’s thriller comes close at times to bugged-out exploitation flick territory – but lets its fleet and fresh manner carry it towards a Paul Schrader-esque moral calvary.

Pastor to a mixed Anglo-Thai congregation, Father Daniel has a young daughter, Olivia (Margaux Dietrich), with wife May (Nattapohn Rawddon). At a sleepover, Olivia is traumatised when her friend’s older brother shows her a “crush” video of a kitten being stomped by a scantily clad floozy. So when her own cat Missy goes awol, she is convinced the same lady is responsible, and asks her dad how God could let it happen. The family mobilise to track down Missy, but Olivia in turn disappears one day after school, kicking off Father Daniel’s own test of faith.

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