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I love action movies without aliens and superheroes so I was exited to see this movie where Halle Berry goes all out in her attempts to safe her kid.

The base of the story isn't that bad but oh how I hate it when writers can't come up with logical behavior even in high pressure situations.

With a little bit more creativity this actually could have been a very decent movie, but they took the easy way and at times it just was annoying how the story developed.

So a big disappointment.

The trailer and the story convinced me so far that I had to buy this DVD. And I didn't regret it because it is a real nail biter that took even my breath away until the end. Halle Berry was perfect in this so emotional mother role. Kidnap is one of the rare movies that is better than all other average or bad movies that came out this year. If you want to spend a suspense evening give this a chance. Together with my wife I give a solid 7/10. If you like this genre of films don't miss Trapped or Panic Room.

Let's start with the good points; the premise is fine, and the initial scenes are well done. Halle Berry delivers a solid performance throughout, which essentially saves the movie. However, the writing is terrible. Frustratingly, infuriatingly lazy writing. The movie contains so many situations where you find yourself shouting at the screen "What??? Why didn't you...(insert sensible course of action)". The answer is, of course, that if her character did that, the movie would be over in the next 5 minutes. My particular favourite was her inexplicably abandoning the shotgun while in the kidnappers house. There is some entertainment to be had here, but you may come away just feeling annoyed at the sheer stupidity on display.

Well... I will first give credit where credit is due. I will admit that despite the many flaws to be found, I was never bored once during my viewing experience. And I will also admit that Halle Berry gives it her all, and certainly deserves an "A" for her great effort. Unfortunately, Berry is often required to spout dialogue (when no one else is around) that feels quite contrived and makes you think that the filmmakers thought the audience would be too stupid to figure out what her character was thinking and feeling if she was silent. A bigger problem is that there many moments where her character does some really stupid things that just extend the situation instead of finishing things much sooner had her character had some basic smartness. For that matter, the bad guys (and also some other characters) do their part to act stupid enough so that they stretch out the narrative as well. Had the movie's characters been of reasonable intelligence, we might possibly have had something here. But as it is, the movie is not that much better than silently watching a blank wall for 95 minutes.

I was optimistic about this being good since Halle berry was starting. She did a great job playing a panicked mother but the storyline after the actual kidnapping event was extremely unrealistic. High speed police chases and tools being thrown at vehicles on the highway and nobody calls the cops? No traffic cams picked up on any of this? Highly unlikely. Save your money and don't go see this movie. There weren't enough good parts to make this a good movie to pay for and I no longer want to watch Halle berry movies in the future.