
Today I'm reviewing the 2017 abduction / thriller film Kidnap directed by Luis Prieto and stars Halle Berry in her second abduction/ thriller film, the other one being the 2013 film The Call. A typical afternoon in the park turns into a nightmare for single mother Karla Dyson (Halle Berry) when kidnappers snatch her young son, Frankie. With no cell phone and no time to wait for police, Karla jumps into her car, risking everything to save her beloved son. This film was a disaster waiting to be happen, seeing as it had five different release dates dating back to 2014! Yes it waited that long being released due to studio bankruptcy. This film was absolutely atrocious! I don't know where to begin or how to describe the pain I just witnessed. It's like the director approved a script from an 8-year-old. I can also tell the director has no skill whatsoever in making a film. That being said, let me begin picking apart this film's problems from the beginning. We get your typical opening where we get to meet the character and she's working in a diner. I've never seen a film that had such a long dragged out opener in my entire life. We get a long scene of these customers eating as if they are going to be some part of the plot, which they don't because they're EXTRAS! This scene lasts for 15 minutes! We meet Halle Berry's character when she complains to her boss that she must leave work early to take her kid to the park, as if that is a good reason to leave work in the first place. Her son manages to get kidnapped while she answers her cell phone standing 5 FEET FROM HIM! Let's not forget he was sitting right next to hundreds of people that already acknowledged the he came with his mother at the time of his disappearance and no one seems to notice or care that he's gone. The film doesn't want us to know who the kidnappers are, but they forgot that we can see clearly see them through the dashboard window! The entire film is her chasing these kidnappers down in the same boring road filled with rinse-and-repeat car crashes, because what's an abduction film without action? Let's not forget that Berry's character keeps repeatedly crashing, yet her van barely shows any damage and runs like a champ. I could use that vehicle right about now. We meet the kidnappers roughly through the 40 minute mark where they decide to pull over, get out of their cars and have a staring contest that lasts 10 MINUTES! The kidnappers look like your stereotypical trailer-trash Walmart shopper, I wouldn't doubt that the director went to Walmart and asked the first two people he saw to be in his film. The villians have the most standard purpose in why they are kidnapping this kid. I've seen more low budget films done way better. Let's talk about the villains wardrobe in this film. The redneck outfit on these villains look so obviously fake that it looks like they ordered the wardrobe from a knock-off 99 cent costume store. The lines being delivered from the entire cast are so unbelievably bad, I thought Tommy Wiseau wrote this film. Though, I'm sure it would have been a lot better if he did because at least I'd have a good laugh. Look, I like Halle Berry but this film might have ruined any chance of redemption for her. Right now it looks like she has the Nicolas Cage treatment going on. We get a lot of scenes in this film where the director has us looking at weird crap for prolonged periods of time. For example, we get a shot where we stare at a tire for 4 WHOLE MINUTES! That happens countless times throughout the movie. It's almost like Stevie Wonder was holding the camera and the director said "screw it, that'll work". Let's talk about the score for a second. Why did I feel like Steven Seagal was going to pop out of the screen while she was driving? The score did not work well with this movie. For my biggest rant of them all, after all that Halle Berry went through without any way in contacting the police throughout the movie, she had OnStar in her vehicle the entire time, I kid you not! I guess she magically remembers when she takes out one of the villains. This film finally ends, but not without another long scene after the generic anti-climactic ending! This film's entire script feels like a rough cut; like the script was in its first stages of being written and they called it the main script. The sound and film editing were absolutely atrocious. Did the director not care what he approved during final cut? The sad thing is I have dozens more to complain about, but I'm worn out from typing. I see people knocking this off as a generic film and give it a pass. I'm sorry, this film doesn't get a pass for being generic from me. It's absolutely terrible from beginning to end. I'm going to give Kidnap a 1/10 . What were your thoughts on this movie? Leave me a comment below and I'll see you on my next review.