Review: Kidnap

The completely inescapable takeaway from the first season of Ryan Murphy's Feud is that it's hard out there for actresses of a certain age. Whether one is a multiple Oscar winner like Bette Davis or a hugely popular star like Joan Crawford, quality roles for women become more and more scarce as one grows older. Halle Berry is both an Oscar winner and star and, even at her prime, she wasn't exactly getting the types of roles that truly showcased her abilities. Her latest vehicle, Kidnap, doesn't look to turn that tide anytime soon; the constant reshuffling of its release date seems to indicate a lack of faith on its distributors' part. Too bad, since Kidnap - a hybrid variation of Taken and Steven Spielberg's Duel - is actually a solid B-movie, one whose pluck ends up being cause for admiration.

It starts off generically enough. Karla Dyson (Berry) is a single mother working as a harried diner waitress just trying to get through her shift so that she can have a day at the amusement park with her six-year-old son Frankie (Sage Correa). She appears to be on the losing end of a custody battle with her ex-husband, who works in real estate and whose new girlfriend is a pediatrician. A phone call from her lawyer provides enough distraction for Frankie to be kidnapped in broad daylight. Karla spots her child being ushered into a car and, after dropping her phone on the ground in her panic, hops into her car and gives chase.

Here is where Kidnap proves its worth as the majority of the film is focused on the chase between the desperate but determined Karla and the mysterious couple who have abducted her son. Initially, the car chase is like any other car chase - generic pounding music, infrequently frantic editing, sustained fear from Berry - but then it keeps going and going and going and, unlike most films of this ilk, ends up pulling one in rather than numbing one over. Knate Lee's screenplay is relatively lean - though not without plot holes and other bits of ridiculousness - and there are moments that both border on laughable and tense. One has the male abductor (Lew Temple), whose looks are just this side of redneck, emerging from his car, flicking a switchblade, and running after Karla who hurriedly returns to her car and starts driving in reverse. Just when one thinks he's about to go all T-1000 on her, he starts huffing and puffing and holding on to his knees to catch his breath, which gives her time to step on the accelerator and start chasing him. There are a handful of other such scenes that beggar belief yet deliver on the thrills.

Kidnap works better than it has any right to - one, because Berry unquestionably gives it her all and, two, because director Luis Prieto (best known for remaking Nicolas Winding Refn's 1996 debut Pusher) does well in maintaining the suspense.

Kidnap

Directed by: Luis Prieto

Written by: Knate Lee

Starring: Halle Berry, Sage Correa, Lew Temple, Chris McGinn