Read

Captive (2015) is part true story, part religious drama, and part film adaptation of Ashley Smith’s nonfiction book An Unlikely Angel, which itself is broadly influenced by evangelical Christian Rick Warren’s best-selling book The Purpose-Driven Life. Captive tells the story of Brian Nichols, who went on a killing spree in 2005, escaped custody, took Smith hostage, and held her inside her own home.

The events of the film are drawn from what transpired between Nichols and Smith during the time in her apartment, following the sequence leading up to it. Nichols, who was awaiting a second trial for the rape, kidnapping, and assault of a former girlfriend, overpowered a sheriff’s deputy, stole her gun, and beat her into a coma. He put on civilian clothes and walked through the courthouse, murdering Judge Rowland Barnes, court reporter Julie Brandau, Sergeant Hoyt Teasley, and later that day, ICE Agent David G. Wilhelm. He eventually entered the home of Ashley Smith and held her hostage there. The event became a national news story and a manhunt for Nichols was underway.

Smith, as revealed in her book, was a recovering drug addict when Nichols entered her home. Publisher’s Weekly says of Smith’s narrative, “Over the next seven hours, Smith convinced herself that God sent Nichols to straighten her out, and, between her cutting lines of speed for him to snort off her bathroom counter, showing him pictures of her daughter and family, reading him passages of ‘The Purpose-Driven Life,’ helping him ditch a truck he’d stolen, telling him about her murdered husband, and cooking Nichols a pancake breakfast, she persuaded him to turn himself in.”

Based on the film’s trailers, it appears the angle of Captive’s storytelling may leave out the details about offering drugs as comfort, highlighting instead the religious elements and the influence of Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life as the saving grace that ushered the situation to its relatively positive outcome. Publisher’s Weekly referred to Smith’s book as one that “could serve as a companion volume to ‘The Purpose-Driven Life,”’ and the film looks as though it too would qualify for that description.

The religious undertones of the film call into question the story’s accuracy of the real life events. “Captive is setting itself apart from other films based on true events by pushing the underlying themes of faith inherent in the story. Brian Bird, who wrote the screenplay, will capitalize on his years of experience writing faith-affirming material to introduce powerful religious themes and imagery to the film. It’s a smart move as faith-based films, such as Heaven is for Real (2014), have enjoyed great box office success in recent years.” - ScreenRant

Neither Smith nor Nichols are presented as outwardly good or bad people in Captive, but as two individuals seeking redemption for bad choices through a scary situation and the assistance of a self-help book. The film aims to get the details of the crimes and hostage situation right, but as CinemaBlend notes, “This film is more about the relationship Nichols developed with one of his kidnap victims, played by Kate Mara… with a story about how a broken spirit is mended by an unlikely source of hope.”

The ordeal was revisited by Smith (now Robinson) in an article for the Gwinnett County Post in early 2015, where she speaks of finding God through the eyes of a killer, and talks of the unusual bond she formed with the man who held her hostage. “He seemed confused and like he was fighting a spiritual battle,” Robinson remembers.”

Such is the angle Captive takes on the true story; the one its subject remembers.