KIDNAP (2017) – My rating: 7.5/10

Kidnap is a thriller directed by Luis Prieto and written by Knate Lee about a mother who follows her son’s kidnappers to get him back, at any cost.  Although Kidnap seems unlikely to ever happen, it will cause you to cheer this mother on til the very end of the movie. This is not a new concept, as it’s been done before, just not quite like this.  The making of Kidnap began in 2009 and was finally released in 2017.

Karla Dyson (Halle Berry) is a divorced waitress living a pretty decent life as a single mom with her six-year-old son, Frankie (Sage Correa).  Karla works hard and devotes most of her time to her son who she obviously loves with all her heart.  Her x-husband is currently remarried and is pursuing custody rights of their son, despite Karla’s great parenting skills.  One day, after her shift at the diner, Karla takes Frankie to the local carnival where he is kidnapped. She observes Frankie being shoved into a green third generation Ford Mustang by a women and begins to run after them.  While running, she drops her already lowly charged cell phone, grabs hold of the rack on top of the car and continues running while the car is moving. Eventually Karla had to let go but was able to jump into her own vehicle and peruse chasing them as they hit the highway.

Without her phone, Karla is unable to call 911 so she tries to signal nearby motorists, but her attempt is stopped by the kidnapper when she threatens to throw Frankie out of the moving car by opening the car door and displaying half his body.   Karla hears the abductor’s voice over her son’s toy voice recorder, revealing her name as Margo (Chris McGinn), and telling the listener that Karla is looking for her son, despite all attempts to discourage her.  Soon after, she sees a police motorcycle several feet behind her. Hoping to engage the officer’s help in stopping the abductor’s car, Karla sways her car to attract attention, but the abductor  slams the police motorcycle into Karla’s car, knocking the police officer unconscious.

From this point, the story changes dramatically.  I’m sure you can begin to see how suspenseful Kidnap is becoming.  As usual, I have to stop here as not to spoil any more of the story.  I can only say you will be sitting on the edge of your seat right up to the end.  Halle Berry is in every scene and while I think her acting skills are better suited for roles like Storm in X-men and 007 divas she did a pretty good job in Kidnap.  I recommend waiting for Blu-Ray or DVD.  However, if you see Kidnap on the big screen, you won’t be disappointed.  I was thoroughly entertained.

 

ROUGH NIGHT (2017) – My rating: 6.5/10

Rough Night was a rough movie.  While some of it was funny most of it was a play on male bonding comedies done many times before.  I found Rough Night down right silly yet tolerable.  There were quite a few “not so bad moments” along with too many annoying moments, as well.

The movie starts in 2006 with 4 friends Jess (Scarlett Johansson), Alice (Jillian Bell), Frankie (Ilana Glazer) and Blair (Zoë Kravitz) in their first year of college.  During this period of friendship and bonding, they are doing what first year students do, attending silly parties and performing senseless acts, like spitting a ball across the room to break a rubber boob.  Oh my, what a party that was.  Guys dressed in thongs, women dressed in ridiculous outfits that served no purpose and everyone just drank and did stupid things.  Nothing that really resembles a real party like dancing and meaningful conversation.  The film then takes us 10 years in the future where Jess is running for office and is engaged to be married to Peter (Paul W. Downs).  She seems to be out of touch with her old friends from college except for her upcoming bachelorette party. Alice, who always considered herself Jess’s best friend, decides that the four friends should spend the weekend in Miami partying. They are also joined by Pippa (Kate McKinnon), Jess’s friend from a semester she attended in Australia. The friends get high and party at a club and then decide to hire a male stripper (Ryan Cooper).  When the stripper arrives, the adventure really gets going.

The series of events is the meat of Rough Night so I can’t list what follows.  There’s a death, misunderstandings, an unexpected trip, unexpected sex, oversexed neighbors (Ty Burrell and Demi Moore), robbers, wild emotions, make ups, break ups, bodies, handcuffs, drugs, burner phones, diamonds, boats, a cop (Colton Haynes), hellos and good-byes.  Rough Night is a roller coaster of crazy.  It starts off crazy and ends crazy with crazy in the middle.  Good acting — but doesn’t measure up to any of the guy bonding movies like The Hangover Trilogies.  I would wait for the DVD.