Kidnap

Kidnap is a 2017 American action-thriller film directed by Luis Prieto and written by Knate Lee. It stars Halle Berry, Sage Correa, Chris McGinn, and Lew Temple. The plot follows a working mother who pursues her young son's captors. The film was produced by di Bonaventura Pictures, Lotus Entertainment, 606 Films, Gold Star Films, Ingenious Media, Well Go USA, and Rumble Entertainment on a budget of $21 million. It was announced in September 2014, and filmed in New Orleans and Slidell, Louisiana from October to December 2014.
The film's original distributor, Relativity Media, filed for bankruptcy in 2015, delaying its release several times. In May 2017, the newly-founded Aviron Pictures acquired the distribution rights. Kidnap premiered at the ArcLight Hollywood multiplex on July 31, 2017, and was released in the United States on August 4. The film received mixed reviews; critics commended Berry's performance but criticized the writing and directing. At the 49th NAACP Image Awards, Berry was nominated for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture.
== Plot ==
Waitress and single mother Karla Dyson takes her six-year-old son, Frankie, to a carnival. While there, she receives a call from her lawyer discussing a custody battle over Frankie. After the call, Karla has lost sight of her son. She looks for him but can only find his toy voice recorder. In the parking lot, she sees a woman dragging her son into a green Ford Mustang driven by a male. Karla initially chases after them on foot before entering her vehicle and driving after them, leaving her phone behind after she initially drops it.
The two kidnappers evade Karla by tossing a spare tire into a busy highway and causing a pile-up and then threatening to kill Frankie with a knife. Karla learns the female captor's name is Margo through a recording from her son's toy. She purposely attracts the attention of a police officer on a motorcycle and explains the situation to him but the kidnappers kill him. Margo talks to Karla, requesting $10,000 in exchange for her son. Margo enters Karla's car and tells her to follow her accomplice's car. In a dark tunnel, Margo attacks Karla, who fights back and throws Margo out of the car. The other captor threatens to hurt Frankie, forcing Karla to stop following him.
Minutes later, Karla comes across a traffic jam and finds the Mustang abandoned. She is told by a passerby that the male driver and Frankie are now traveling on foot. Karla goes to a police station to report the kidnapping but, taking note of the number of missing children that are never found, decides to take matters into her own hands. She spots the male kidnapper in a stolen black Volvo V70 and attempts to stop the vehicle, but fails to do so, she chases him until her vehicle runs out of fuel. She tried to hitch a ride from a motorist, but they are blindsided by the Volvo and the good samaritan dies. The male kidnapper emerges from his car with a shotgun, but Karla manages to kill him by pinching his arm against the door frame of her minivan, and disabling the van's parking brake, causing the van to go downhill, offroad, while still holding on to the man's arm, after a few seconds, the minivan crashed into a tree, killing the man. She finds his identification card that contained his address. There, she calls 911 and locates Frankie in a barn with two kidnapped girls. She and her son run away, promising to come back later, and hide underwater after Margo appears. Karla pulls Margo underwater and drowns her. She returns to the barn and encounters a bearded man claiming to be a neighbor. She realizes he is part of the child kidnapping ring when he mentions how many children were hiding without her telling him. Karla knocks him out with a shovel. The police arrive shortly afterward, and the children are rescued. Karla's actions lead to the dissolution of an international child abduction ring, and she is praised as a hero.
During the credits, Karla and Frankie are shown happily attending the carnival again together.
Category:2017 films
Category:American films
Category:English-language films