We have all heard the stories about a mother rescuing her child from under a car by lifting the car up with temporary super-human strength. In many ways this movie demonstrates super-human strength and determination of a mother, played very well by Hallie Berry who would do anything to save her son who she witnessed being kidnapped by two very disgusting criminals. After the abduction of her six year old son at a carnival, what follows are some very horrendous car chase scenes and some massive car accidents on several highways. All of this is believable because of the acting of Hallie Berry and her desperation to save her son at all costs. Some of the scenes and ideas here are a little outlandish but ultimately I ignored all of this because of the intensity that engaged me about what was happening on the screen. The two criminals in this thriller were also very believable and well played by Chris McGinn and Lew Temple.

The reality of this world is that kidnapping rings run by lowlife like this actually do exist and unfortunate parents have to live the rest of their lives wondering if their child is dead or alive and this is a life very few of us could ever endure. This movie does a very good job in demonstrating what such an abduction of a young child would be like and what the desperation and anger of a mother would be like within such an intense situation.

For some reason the reviews for Kidnap are not very high and this movie completed filming in 2014 and was then shelved for several years before finally being released that could have something to do with the bankruptcy of the film studio that produced this film.

Despite some negative opinions and several flaws in this story I do recommend this movie.

At the beginning of this film, I thought it presented some of the most imaginative aliens and space special effects I have ever seen. At the end of this movie, and I had to leave early because I could not stand to sit through it anymore, I thought it was another typical special effects with no story movie where the producers were only interested in the computer graphics and had no interest in taking a year to write a good story. In fact, there is no real story here at all. I would recommend this movie for people who are on LSD or Heroin, but for the rest of us who are trying to at least stay awake for 2 hours, this movie is a waste of time and computer software. In the end, after going into my 3rd coma watching this mess, I just about had to run away from this disaster.

The few good points of this film are some of the special effects and the actress Cara Delevingne who should have a bright future in Hollywood but given the fickle nature of that business and this bad film who knows. Towards the end there is an appearance of Rihanna who has a small cameo, but not nearly enough of an appearance to rescue this film.

This is a B movie that should have went straight to DVD and I do not recommend it.

What will draw people into this movie because of the previews are the action scenes of hand to hand fighting and martial arts which are very well choreographed and impressive, but unfortunately the rest of this movie was disappointing as far as the complex spy story in Berlin combinations of which we have seen before, the depressing and gray locations where the film was shot in Hungary and the constant chain smoking, mostly with Charlize Theron’s character that was done far too much, even for the 1989 time this story takes place. Once you are drawn into a movie like this to see some of the action scenes, you want something more and for me that was just not present in this film which at times I found rather boring and run of the mill.

This movie also stars James McAvoy and John Goodman who play parts we have seen them in before, specially Goodman as one of the leaders of the MI6 organization Theron’s character is working for. While watching this film, that I thought was too long, I wondered about people like this who risk their lives every day as spies, realizing that at any minute they could be killed. You just have to admire the dedication and courage of people who believe in their cause so much they are willing to give up any sort of a normal life but unfortunately this movie tells a mostly bad and boring story and for that reason I cannot recommend this movie.