Kidnap

I love action movies without aliens and superheroes so I was exited to see this movie where Halle Berry goes all out in her attempts to safe her kid.

The base of the story isn't that bad but oh how I hate it when writers can't come up with logical behavior even in high pressure situations.

With a little bit more creativity this actually could have been a very decent movie, but they took the easy way and at times it just was annoying how the story developed.

So a big disappointment.

Karla Dyson (Halle Berry) is a stressed out waitress in New Orleans. Her son Frankie is everything to her. Her husband is fighting for primary custody of him. At a park, Frankie is kidnapped with Karla following in hot pursuit.

Halle Berry seems to have fallen into a lot of these minor thrillers. The first half has some good thrills. This is essentially one long car chase concluding in a fight to the death. There are a few too many convenient twists which erodes the believeability of the movie. At one point, she is following the kidnappers surreptitiously and I figured that's good way to follow them to their hideout. Instead, it keeps trying to elevate the intensity by having unrealistic turns. The movie slowly falls apart but it keeps trying and that's somewhat watchable.

Let's start with the good points; the premise is fine, and the initial scenes are well done. Halle Berry delivers a solid performance throughout, which essentially saves the movie. However, the writing is terrible. Frustratingly, infuriatingly lazy writing. The movie contains so many situations where you find yourself shouting at the screen "What??? Why didn't you...(insert sensible course of action)". The answer is, of course, that if her character did that, the movie would be over in the next 5 minutes. My particular favourite was her inexplicably abandoning the shotgun while in the kidnappers house. There is some entertainment to be had here, but you may come away just feeling annoyed at the sheer stupidity on display.

The taglines for the movie 'Kidnap' are "Vengeance is a mother" and "They messed with the wrong mother". I really wish they would change or adapt these because they imply a different type of film to what this actually is. To me those scream of a film like 'The Brave One', 'Taken' or 'Deathwish' where revenge is the motivating factor. That couldn't be further from the case. This is actually quite a grounded story about a desperate mother who will do whatever it takes to get her child back. Misleading taglines aside, it is quite a good film.

It's the pacing that really makes this film tick along. It really does grab you by the proverbials early and then never lets you go. You are in for the ride along with the mother and you genuinely care about the outcome for these characters. There are a few pieces of ill-advised writing, where character's decisions are questionable at best, however it has to be said it is very hard to avoid any of those at all in a film like this and still have 94 minutes of action.

Halle Berry is good in the lead role. Something I've noticed about her is that she is a much better actress when her character is under duress. When she is just being a regular person and asked to act normally she comes across quite clunky and you remember why she won a Razzie. Give her character some drama to work with though and you quickly remember why she also won an Oscar.

'Kidnap' is a good little thriller with excellent pacing, decent acting and more than enough going on to justify an hour and a half of your time. Give it a look.

The trailer and the story convinced me so far that I had to buy this DVD. And I didn't regret it because it is a real nail biter that took even my breath away until the end. Halle Berry was perfect in this so emotional mother role. Kidnap is one of the rare movies that is better than all other average or bad movies that came out this year. If you want to spend a suspense evening give this a chance. Together with my wife I give a solid 7/10. If you like this genre of films don't miss Trapped or Panic Room.