Kidnap (2017 film)

Kidnap
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Luis Prieto
Produced by
Screenplay by Knate Lee
Starring
Music by Federico Jusid
Cinematography Flavio Martinez Labiano
Edited by Avi Youabian
Production
company
Distributed by Relativity Media
Aviron Pictures
Release date
  • July 31, 2017 (2017-07-31) (ArcLight Hollywood)
  • August 4, 2017 (2017-08-04) (United States)
Running time
 81 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $21 million[1]
Box office $34.8 million[2]

Kidnap is a 2017 American abduction thriller film[3] directed by Luis Prieto, written by Knate Lee and stars Halle Berry, Lew Temple, Sage Correa and Chris McGinn. The film follows Karla, a diner waitress, who is tailing a vehicle when her son is kidnapped by its occupants. The film is Berry's second abduction thriller following 2013's The Call. The film's development began in June 2009. Principal photography began on October 27, 2014 in New Orleans, with scenes also being filmed in Slidell. Filming was completed on December 7, 2014.

Kidnap premiered on July 31, 2017, at ArcLight Hollywood, and was theatrically released in the United States on August 4, 2017, by Aviron Pictures, who purchased the rights to the film for $3 million, after original producer Relativity Media filed for bankruptcy.[4] It has grossed $34 million worldwide and received mixed reviews from critics, with some calling it a "serviceable late-summer diversion" while others criticized the messy plot.[5]

Plot

Karla Dyson (Halle Berry), a diner waitress, lives a mostly perfect life as a single mother with her six-year-old son Frankie (Sage Correa) despite fighting a custody battle/court order with her estranged husband.

One day, Karla takes Frankie to the local carnival. Upon entering, she temporarily leaves her son, in order to take an important phone call from the divorce lawyer she is working with. But when Karla returns, she finds that her son is missing, leaving his toy voice recorder behind. Frantically searching for her son, Karla sees a woman dragging Frankie aggressively into a green Ford Mustang and, while the car is driving away, she clings at the side of the car trying to stop them, losing her phone in the process. Karla drives her car and chases the other one, with an ensuing lengthy chase.

However, with her phone lost, she tries to get help from nearby motorists, but the attempt is thwarted by the kidnappers. Karla is then forced to take another route after the woman threatens to kill her son. Not giving up on rescuing her son, Karla chases the green car again.

Karla hears the abductor's voice from her son's toy voice recorder, revealing the abductor's name Margo, who claims that Karla is looking for her son (despite all attempts to discourage her). She then sees a police motorcycle several meters behind her, and sways her car from side to side, successfully gaining the police officer's attention. The abductors' car slams the police motorcycle into Karla's car, apparently knocking the police officer unconscious.

Upon stopping at a grassy field, Karla confronts the male driver of the green car and demands he release her son, as long as she gives her money to the abductors. However, Margo gets out of the car and forces Karla to ride with her, who claims that they will get $10,000 ransom in exchange for her son upon reaching their destination. Margo orders Karla to follow her accomplice's car.

Upon reaching a tunnel, Margo attacks her, but Karla manages to subdue her and throws her out of the car. Karla puts on Margo's shirt, fooling the second abductor temporarily as she exits the tunnel. Having realized that the driver is not Margo, Karla is forced not to follow the car after the second abductor threatens to drop Frankie out onto the dangerous highway. After Karla loses them for several minutes, she spots a traffic jam, drives ahead of it, and finds the kidnappers' car abandoned after it caused a collision. One of the motorists tells her he saw the man and the boy emerge from the car and Karla drives after them in the direction which he gives.

Karla stops at the police station to report the incident; however, on seeing posters of young children who have been missing for a decade, and fearing that her son will likewise disappear for good, she continues the chase on her own. Karla eventually finds the abductor - who has now stolen a black Volvo - and chases him until she finally runs out of fuel. Karla quickly stops a truck to hitch a ride to follow the abductor, but the truck is suddenly hit by the returning abductors' car, killing the driver and knocking her unconscious.

Upon recovering, she finds that her son's not in the Volvo. The male abductor emerges from his car and begins to shoot at her with a sawed-off shotgun. He tries to attack her in her car and she releases the brake, causing the car to reverse into the woods with the abductor clinging to it being fatally struck by tree branches. Karla yells at the man demanding to know where her son is, but he dies before she can get the answer. Karla finds his identification card and learns his name, Terrence Vickey, and a nearby address where her son might be.

Karla arrives at the Vickey house at nightfall and eventually locates Frankie in the barn with two other kidnapped girls. Before that, she calls 911 as she hides from Margo, who leaves the house in search of her husband Terrence. Karla successfully rescues Frankie, but when Margo — who has just realized that Terrence is dead — returns, she and her son run out of the barn before she can retrieve the two girls. Karla creates a diversion by sailing the skiff away while hiding underwater.

Margo discovers them hiding, and Karla drags Margo down into the water and drowns her. Returning to the barn, she is approached by a man who is the Vickey's neighbor, who holds her at gunpoint. After listening to her and hearing the children in the barn attic, he then offers to help her by getting the two girls down. Realizing that he is the ringleader of the kidnappings since he knew that two girls were there without looking, she kills him with the shovel just before he draws his gun at her.

Karla rescues the two girls as the police arrive. Media reports praise her for saving the children from the abductors, and announcing that Karla's actions have led to police breaking up an international child abduction ring, with arrests being made in other parts of Louisiana, as well as New York, London, Paris, and Dubai. The media hails Karla as a hero.

Cast

  • Halle Berry as Karla Dyson, Frankie's mother, who searches for her kidnapped child
  • Sage Correa as Frankie Dyson, Karla's son
  • Chris McGinn as Margo Vickey, a female kidnapper and Terrence's wife
  • Lew Temple as Terrence "Terry" Vickey, a male kidnapper and Margo's husband
  • Jason Winston George as David
  • Christopher Berry as Bearded Man, the ringleader of the kidnappers
  • Aaron Shiver as Bill
  • Kurtis Bedfor as Del
  • Carmela Riley as Stephanie

Production

Principal photography on the film began on October 27, 2014 in New Orleans, Louisiana.[6][7] In mid-November, filming was also taking place in Slidell.[8] Filming ended on December 7, 2014.[8]

Release

The film was originally scheduled for release on October 9, 2015,[9] but in July 2015 Relativity Media pushed back the film from its original release date of October 9, 2015 to February 26, 2016, because the company was facing a financial crisis.[10] It was then again re-scheduled from February 26, 2016 to May 13, 2016,[11] then from May 13, 2016 to December 2, 2016,[12] and pulled off the schedule altogether.[13] It was then pushed back from December 2, 2016 to March 10, 2017, but was delayed yet again after Relativity filed for bankruptcy, and producers had put the film back on the market, losing rights to it. Aviron Pictures, the new distributor, bought the rights for $3 million, and was then pushed back for a final time from March 10, 2017 to August 4, 2017, nearly three years after production began; they spent a total of $13 million on promotion.[14]

Reception

Box office

Kidnap grossed $30.7 million in the United States and Canada and $2 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $32.7 million, against a production budget of $21 million.[2]

In North America, Kidnap was released alongside the opening of The Dark Tower, and the wide expansion of Detroit, and was projected to gross around $8 million from 2,378 theaters in its opening weekend.[15] The film made $3.7 million on its first day (including $500,000 from Thursday previews) and $10 million over the weekend, finishing 5th at the box office.[4] It dropped 49.1% in its second week to $5.1 million, finishing 8th.[16]

Critical response

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 34% based on 70 reviews, and an average rating of 4.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Kidnap strays into poorly scripted exploitation too often to take advantage of its pulpy premise – or the still-impressive talents of its committed star."[17] On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating, to film has a score of 44 out of 100, based on 26 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[18] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, while comScore reported filmgoers gave a 74% overall positive score and a 53% definite recommend.[4]

David Elrich of IndieWire gave the film a "D–" and called it the worst of the summer, saying: "The Emoji Movie might have been a boring and brazenly cynical piece of corporate propaganda, but at least it had the courtesy to be offensive. Kidnap, on the other hand, doesn’t have the courtesy to be much of anything."[19]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Kidnap (2017)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved August 21, 2017.
  2. 1 2 "Kidnap (2017)". The Numbers. Retrieved April 7, 2018.
  3. ↑ "Kidnap (2017)". AllMovie. Retrieved August 2, 2017.
  4. 1 2 3 "'The Dark Tower' Is Tall Enough For No. 1 With $19.5M During Sluggish Summer Weekend". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved August 7, 2017.
  5. ↑ Giles, Jeff (August 3, 2017). "Dark Tower Condemned". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved August 17, 2017.
  6. ↑ "Production Begins on Kidnap, Starring Halle Berry". comingsoon.net. October 27, 2014. Retrieved October 28, 2014.
  7. ↑ Kay, Jeremy (October 27, 2014). "Kidnap begins New Orleans shoot". screendaily.com. Retrieved October 28, 2014.
  8. 1 2 St Tamm, Jefferson and St. Bernard parishes are cited in the end credits. "Halle Berry filming 'Kidnap' in New Orleans". onlocationvacations.com. November 20, 2014. Retrieved November 21, 2014.
  9. ↑ Sneider, Jeff (September 17, 2014). "Halle Berry, Kate Beckinsale Lead Relativity's Fall 2015 Release Slate". thewrap.com. Retrieved October 28, 2014.
  10. ↑ Lang, Brent (July 20, 2015). "Relativity Moving Release of 'Kidnap' With Halle Berry (EXCLUSIVE)". variety.com. Retrieved July 22, 2015.
  11. ↑ Pederson, Erik (December 4, 2015). "Relativity Dates Five Films For 2016 Including 'Kidnap' & 'Masterminds'". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved December 5, 2015.
  12. ↑ Corrigan, Tom. "Relativity Media Reveals New Film Schedule". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved March 17, 2016.
  13. ↑ Siegel, Tatiana (November 8, 2016). "Halle Berry Thriller 'Kidnap' Moved Off Relativity Schedule". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved November 8, 2016.
  14. ↑ D'Alessandro, Anthony (May 11, 2017). "David Dinerstein Launches Aviron Pictures With Halle Berry's 'Kidnap', Alec Baldwin-Salma Hayek Pic 'Drunk Parents' & More". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved May 11, 2017.
  15. ↑ "Sony's long-awaited 'Dark Tower' may unseat 'Dunkirk' with $25-million box-office premiere". Los Angeles Times. August 2, 2017.
  16. ↑ D'Alessandro, Anthony. "New Line's Dollhouse Of Dough: 'Annabelle: Creation' Opening To $36M+". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved August 12, 2017.
  17. ↑ "Kidnap (2017)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved September 3, 2017.
  18. ↑ "Kidnap reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved August 10, 2017.
  19. ↑ Ehrlich, David (August 2, 2017). "Review: A Halle Berry Vehicle with Four Flat Tires, 'Kidnap' Is the Worst Movie of the Summer". IndieWire. Retrieved August 10, 2017.
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