Movie Review (Items 36 - 40)
Ever since Halle Berry opened the Oscar Actress door for winning the elusive
plum prize for her role in "Monster s Ball" (2011 ), her career seemed to have
taken a down turn instead of up. Aside from her regular appearance as Storm in
the X-Men movies, she had nothing else quite 1nemorable. She even got a Razzie
for worst actress in "Catwoman" (2004 ).
Quite by coincidence, Berry's last film of note was also a film about a kidnap
incident, entitled "The Call" (2013) where she played the 911 operator who
receives a distress call from an abducted girl. The topic of her newest film
"Kidnap" is quite apparent from the title alone. I went in not expecting too much.
I just wanted to see Ms. Berry in action in (he lead. role again.
Karla Dyson works as a waitress in a diner as she struggles to support her six
year-old son Frankie while dealing with her divorce from her husband. One day
at the amusement park while her attention is diverted by a ·call on her cellphone,
Karla realizes that Frankie is missing. In her distress, she caught sight of an old
green Ford Mustang driving off, with a big woman. stuffing her boy into the car!
Karla rushes to get her own car and gives chase to the couple who kidnapped her son.
This film is all about Halle Berry and her intense portrayal of the never-say-die
determined mother who never gave up chasing down the car that had her
abducted son in it. She was doing incredibly brave and dangerous things no
ordinary woman ( or any ordinary man for that matter) could have done in real life.
To say that Karla was relentless is a gross understatement. Berry made sure we feel
the despair and vulnerability of this 1nother as she stuck to her chase no matter how
many times she cheated death doing so.
The two kidnappers Terry and Margo Vicky were portrayed as crazy redneck
hicks by Lew Temple and Chris McGinn respectively. These are one dimensional
bad guys who were not the typical crooks who try to get away as fast as they can
from those chasing them. These guys were bqld and confrontational.
They had Karla pinned in several precarious situations which she was always lucky and
superhuman enough to escape from. This kept the excitement level of the film going.
Why did the reviewer say, "I went in not expecting too much"?