Reviewed by: John Johnson
CONTRIBUTOR
Moral Rating: | Offensive |
Moviemaking Quality: |
|
Primary Audience: | Adults |
Genre: | Action Crime Thriller |
Length: | 1 hr. 34 min. |
Year of Release: | 2017 |
USA Release: |
August 4, 2017 (wide—2,200+ theaters) DVD: October 31, 2017 |
Protecting your children from harm
Child abduction / kidnapping / kidnapper
Missing children
Perseverance
Conquering FEAR, Anxiety and Worry
Missing children
Custody battles
Extremely distracted driving resulting in numerous victims
Featuring |
Halle Berry … Karla Dyson Sage Correa … Frankie Chris McGinn … Margo Lew Temple … Terry Jason George (Jason Winston George) … David Christopher Berry … Bearded Man Arron Shiver (Aaron Shiver) … Bill See all » |
Director |
Luis Prieto |
Producer |
Colin Bates Halle Berry Gregory Chou See all » |
Distributor | Aviron Pictures |
“They messed with the wrong mother”
Here’s what the distributor says about their film: “‘Kidnap’ is a heart-stopping action thriller following a mother (Halle Berry) who will stop at nothing to rescue her kidnapped son.”
There is no greater human love than the love a parent has for a child. Our Lord and savior is the complete embodiment of this. In this story, the loving parent is Karla Dyson (Halle Berry). You can see this before the first word of dialog is even spoken, because the opening scene consists of photos and recorded videos of Carla and her son as he progresses from infant to the age that he is currently.
Karla is a struggling single mother, who is overworked and hates her job as a waitress. On top of that, she finds out that her ex-husband is getting a lawyer and is considering taking full custody of their son.
To escape her everyday woes and have fun with her son, she takes him to an amusement park. While they are at the park, they decide to sit down and watch a show, but she unexpectedly gets a call from her lawyer. So, she steps aside. Her son wonders off a little bit, and this is where a day of fun at the park turns into a day of TERROR. Her son goes missing.
She suspects that he has been kidnapped when he leaves behind his walkie-talkie. She frantically starts yelling his name, asks other people in the park if they’ve seen him. They haven’t, so she makes her way to her car, and as she’s doing that, she sees her son being taken away by his kidnappers in a blue vehicle, and the chase begins.
The movie is basically almost a very long chase scene, except for the first 15 and the last 20 minutes. It is a pretty suspenseful movie, but not a realistic one. (Halle Berry’s character makes some dumb decisions). There are also a few moments when you may think, “That would never happen like that in real life.”
I RARELY ever say this but, I was actually kind of shocked that this was rated R. I think that it could have been PG-13, because there is very little blood, only one f-bomb, no sex scenes/nudity, and it is only implied that one of the kidnappers drinks. The worst instances of violence in this film is when Karla hits one of the kidnappers in the head with a shovel, Karla has a slightly bloody nose after a car wreck, and gets into a brief but non-bloody fight with the female kidnapper.
See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers.
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My Ratings: Moral rating: Good / Moviemaking quality: 4½