TRAPPED is taut, unpretentious thriller directed by Richard Fleischer. The film begins in semi-documentary style, explaining the workings of the U.S. Treasury Department, and then follows the chain of events set in motion when a forged $20 bill is discovered in California. However, it takes a dramatic turn when treasury agents in Washington D.C. recognize the source of the forged bill and travel to a penitentiary in Atlanta to interview Chris Stewart (Lloyd Bridges) is in jail for passing forged bills from that source. The agents engineer a fake escape for Stewart, so that he can lead them to the source of the forgeries. But, Stewart has others ideas and slips his minders.

As with all of his movies, whether A-features like those later in his career or small B-pictures like TRAPPED, Fleischer obtains forceful performances from his actors, not only Lloyd Bridges, in whom he uncovers a violent unpredictableness, but also Barbara Payton as Stewart's girl, and John Hoyt as a determined agent masquerading as a small time crook.