[Image Provided by Aviron Pictures]

Film Review: Kidnap

09:27 August 10, 2017
By: David Vicari

If the trailer of the Louisiana-shot thriller Kidnap, starring Halle Berry, gives you the feeling of déjà vu, that is probably because it is similar to another recent Halle Berry thriller, 2013's The Call. In The Call, she plays a 911 operator who decides to go out and find the abducted girl with whom she was speaking on the emergency phone call. In Kidnap, Berry is a single mom who witnesses her young son (Sage Correa) being abducted from a public park. That maternal instinct kicks in and Berry gets in her minivan and pursues the kidnapper's car onto the interstate.

This is a pure chase picture and, thankfully, not some ridiculously convoluted mystery. It's a better film than The Call, but not by much. Kidnap alternates between some genuinely suspenseful moments and unintentional silliness. There should be a drinking game for the number of innocent people Berry's character gets killed in her pursuit to rescue her son. It's also funny when Berry screams hysterically when she causes car wrecks. In one scene on the interstate, she slams on her brakes and backs up. The screen then flickers like a strobe light and never shows us the massive car pileup, so we really don't get to see how much carnage the protagonist has just caused.

Kidnap is one of those movies that you may mildly enjoy if you are not expecting much from it. 


** out of four

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