Halle Berry takes what a mother will do to save her child to the next level in the Aviron Pictures’ film Kidnap, which is being released in movie theaters on Friday (August 4th).
Halle hosted a special pre-screening of the film at New York’s AMC Loews 34th Street 14 movie theater on Wednesday (August 2nd). In the film, the Academy Award winner plays mother and waitress Karla Dyson, who after taking her son Frankie (Sage Correa) to a fair at a park, witnesses him being abducted and dragged into a car by a mysterious woman. From there the film kicks into gear, as Karla gets behind the wheel chasing after the abductors on the roads and backwoods of Louisiana, until confronting the abductors face to face.
One of the film’s big strengths is in its directness and simplicity in which no scenes that deviate from the core plot and storyline are included. Within the first twenty minutes Halle’s character is on the chase, and the abduction occurs no more than ten or fifteen minutes into the film. However the chase scene in itself although central to the plot tends to be drawn out with dialogue that doesn’t grab the audience and certain stunts that come off as unbelievable. What saves the movie is during the second half when Halle’s character Karla gets smarter in how to take matters into her own hands. She takes control of the situation and confronts the villains fearlessly moving from the panicked and frantic helpless Karla that we saw in the first half of the film.
Aside from Halle’s character Karla, the film lacks a sense of character development amongst its other characters as well as no motive given for why the villains are kidnapping children. In a sense, it feels like Halle’s Kidnap character is similar to the one she portrayed in the The Call. Although the film has a 94 minute running time, the movie feels much shorter and could have used an extra twenty minutes or so to really develop the characters in the second half of the film. This would have really made the film stand in its own lane rather, than playing things safe and keeping the resolution and climax too simple.
