O'Brien, Christopher Ball -- Principal Cast, Lisa Ryder, Randy Hughson and Gary Farmer -- Next showing Tuesday, May 5, 6.15 p.m. at Liberty Theatre.

*** The Bermuda Film Festival's Stolen Heart was a great dysfunctional thriller, but there were more than a few short ends.

Stolen Heart which premiered on Friday evening at the Little Theatre was a Canadian comedy of errors where a kidnapping is a means of settling accounts.

It was shot in a small town several miles north of Toronto, Ontario during one of the coldest winters in recent record. In 1998 Stolen Heart was selected as the "Best Canadian Feature Film'' at the Victoria 1998 Independent Film Festival.

The most interesting thing about the film's making was it was shot entirely on short ends. Writer Terry O'Brien and Producer Christopher Ball spent two years collecting `short ends' of film stock from just about every production that was shooting in Toronto at the time.

The 100,000 feet of assorted 35mm stocks (enough to fill four chest freezers) saved the team over $60,000.

The cast and crew once seeing the quality of the script agreed to defer wages and equipment houses, labs and studios came on board with substantial discounts in order to support one of the first Canadian feature films shot without government assistance.

The entire budget was $100,000. A film-goer commented that Stolen Heart cost half as much as the previous film shown, Trouble on the Corner , yet was twice as good.

The main character is a female drifter named Joey, played by Lisa Ryder. Ms Ryder of Newsroom , Forever Knight and City of Dark plays Joey, a drifter who has been trying to get her kidnapped daughter back for 12 years.

Ms Ryder gave a stunning performance and was in many ways the best thing about Stolen Heart . Why hasn't she been in more movies? Joey decides to take action with Avery (Christopher Healey) and Creed (James Gatto). They plan to kidnap Crystal (Meghan Toll), the daughter of a local self-help guru Robert Buchanan (Randy Hughson) who is secretly Joey's former husband.

Buchanan has told everyone including his daughter that her mother is dead.

Naturally, Creed and Avery knowing nothing of Joey's real motives, bungle everything in a Disnesque manner. Creed needs the ransom money to pay for his daughter's wedding and Avery, a lovable dope-head, seems more vague about his reasons.

Avery and Creed are everything that's wrong about this film. They are tacked in to provide a little comic relief in a movie that's just not nasty enough to be a true thriller.

Their fumblings throughout the film made one audience member groan, "This is turning into the movie Home Alone ''.

Crystal is a sheltered middle class 14-year-old who still has a 8.00 p.m.

curfew and is not allowed to date. As the film develops one sees that although she has been separated from her mother for more than 12 years, she is just like her.

Her mother gave birth to her as a teenager, and now Crystal herself is pregnant. She is feisty and strong-willed making it difficult for Joey to keep her locked in the basement for long.

The characters have depth which unfolds nicely throughout the film. For instance, Crystal's father tells his wife he took Crystal from her mother because she was a violent drug abuser. At the end of the movie his own savageness comes boiling out and he beats up on Joey and his daughter.

The ending of Stolen Heart left something to be desired. A teenager visiting her mother in prison with a baby in tow hardly seems like a resolution.

It is more like the beginning of another cycle of misery.

Mr. O'Brien, who was present at the showing, admitted this was an alternative ending. It was added on after film critics said the first finish -- a gun shot and then fade to black -- was too ambiguous.

JESSIE MONIZ DRIFTER -- Lisa Ryder plays Joey.

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