KIDNAP

US, 2017, 95 minutes, Colour.
Halle Berry, Sage Correa, Chris Mc Ginn, Lew Temple.
Directed by Luis Prieto.

Kidnap is a thriller for those who enjoy desperate, frantic stories and treatment.

The early part of the film spends some time in highlighting the relationship between mother and son, Halle Berry as a waitress, threatened by her former husband with sole custody of her six-year-old son, Frankie, Sage Correa. Things are very desperate at the diner where she works, cranky and demanding customers, a substitute arriving late.

Then she takes her son to the park, and they enjoy the rides, she having a device to contact him calling out Marco and he replies Polo. While she takes a phone call, her son is snatched. She is an enterprising woman, tries to stop the car, gets into her own and for the bulk of the film she pursues the kidnappers along the freeways, on bypasses, causing some mayhem along the way, the kidnapping couple threatening her with the death of her son. A cycle policeman is crushed between the cars. A kindly driver of a van is blindsided. She contacts the police, goes to the police station, becomes impatient.

Ultimately, she is giving information about the house where the kidnappers live. She has already attacked the male kidnapper and discovers the female kidnapper in the house – and not only her son but two other children. The couple are part of a kidnapping ring for the international traffic of children.

There is an ultimate confrontation, the mother winning the day, being praised by the police for her pursuit and enterprising dedication.

Clearly, this whole drama is contrived, that is its nature. It does use the device of the central characters voicing their thoughts and feelings aloud to highlight the intensity of the drama. For some, the whole enterprise might be too much.