It occured to me...

[Chris Wallace]

Don't you think it would be amazingly stupid to kidnap the world's foremost expert on metallurgy, engineering & weapons design, lock him in a room full of building materials & then leave him to work unsupervised?:im:

[Rocker22]

Well he isn't unsupervised, you will see how it plays out in the movie.

[Chris Wallace]

Yeah-he has another hostage watching him. Yeah, trust one hostage to obey orders & another one to hold him to it.
And I'm not just talking about the movie-that's Iron Man's story in general.

[Rocker22]

Oh well in the movie that is not the only thing watching him.

But in the comics it is most likely because that is the best they came up with at the time.

[Chris Wallace]

It's just a dumb move. I've heard some argue that the bad guy thought Stark would be too much of a wimp to dare defy him.