Kidnap (on Netflix) movie review  – April 2018

I just so happened to browse onto “Kidnap” on Netflix and chose to watch it. It was so long since I’d seen Halle Berry in a leading role and I really missed her presence. I’ve always found her to be an amazing actress, relatable, fit, beautiful, in a very real “just walked off the street onto the set way”. She’s more of a great friend and mother figure than a celebrity. I’ve also always liked watching thrillers and am not immune to the kidnap genre, as the hunt to kidnap the kid leads to the hunt to find the kid, mounting with intensity as time runs out.

Anyway, it turned out to be quite different than your usual movie. I’m so glad I watched this film. It touches the right themes in the right way at the right time. I wanted to share with you how I felt they came across, so powerfully, through this movie.

Kidnap is a brutally realistic portrayal of current day life and culture in the USA of the United Stupid Assholes. I’m not saying there isn’t beauty and grace in this large land that spans a continental mass, stretching wide between the oceans. There is a lot of bad and ugly. But there is also protest and fight against it. Here, in Kidnap, we see the powerful resistance that one person, at one time and in one place, can deliver, changing the odds in the process.

The reality of life in the US isn’t inspiring or dream like. This was a mirage conveyed by some of the more colourful glossy 90’s-00’s movies. There is no space for these movies in nowadays reality. The contrast is just too real. Even for the most privileged and sheltered members of society, those lucky enough to be spared the direct reality of Kidnap like situations….. The indirect effects of the US real life nightmare are starting to be felt full force by all.

This movie is repetitive, looping, riding at high speed along the highway of suspense.

It is teaming with the classic villainous callous ruthless people who are determined to bring you down to your knees begging for mercy. They want you to lose and to spoil everything you love. Out of hate for the happiness and joy you bring to the world that they want to build off of domination and oppressive violence. The twisted world in which children are abused, sold off to the worst abusers with the biggest dollar bills.

This is the way the American economy is being designed and encouraged to be played. Trump, the dirtiest player of all, at the head of the table calling the shots, playing killer Trump cards here, there, wherever….But not everywhere. He can’t. In direct contrast to his messy sloppiness, the forces for good are rising. In the face of this horror, we have the embodiment of resistance, love, endless resilience and strength to keep fighting the fight, in a right and just way against the abusers.

Hally Berry, is the perfect being for this opposing role. Kidnap has an unfaltering black mother as its lead character. Halle Berry fully embodies this character, and acts so well that you feel she may just act identically, if such a situation arose in her personal life (although yes, I’m well aware this is a movie).

She is independent, smart and fast. A beautiful black woman, a devoted mother, fighting for her son at all costs. Her beautiful baby boy.

Black Lives Matter!! She needs to shout this all the more, all the louder, all along the lone highway…. as every system around her that could protect and outbalance the bad, is failing and just getting worse…..

I love how this movie embraces it: The system is fucked! Maybe the system is so fucked that you are better off fighting all alone. Fighting with your hands, your wits, your Ford Endurance, sucking in and out the last of the fossil fuels before they burn out , leading us all to where we now are.

She receives 98% support from her resilient, bumping hard, endurant car. The car is just embodying its mistress’s energy (and impressive work by Ford.and the camera crew.and stunt crew). She is lucky to have this car. Without it where would she be? A lot of people out there don’t have cars.

This movie tells it as it is. This is the reality of black mothers all over the world. They work so holistically, often single moms, to raise amazing children who are intelligent and kind. They are able to command a whole movie all by themselves, bringing down the bad guys ninja style. Yet in life they are consistently overlooked, dismissed, and being judged.

This movie addresses male-female parity and equality. The woman in this movie achieves everything all alone.

This movie addresses the failure of the policing state and the services they provide for society. They harass, slow down and hinder instead of supporting, reacting to and understanding situations.

This movie shows us that non reliance on technology can be the answer. Rather than constant connection and reliance on phones. Technology is not the be all and end all. Yet that’s the role we’re assigning to it. However, this movie doesn’t.

Instead it advocates for reliance on strength, instinct, intelligence, devotion, fierceness, belief.

And truly, for us all….This is the way we need to go. These are the values we need to strive for.

Thank you Kidnap and Halle for showing us the way, …. you’re doing it!