A trailer’s just a trailer, but the first clip for Kidnap casts Halle Berry as some kind of avenging-mom Steve McQueen, racing the wrong way on an exit ramp and bashing through SUVs while chasing a… crappy turquoise Mustang with no plates, which somehow can miraculously outrun her minivan—or can it?
Kidnap has been in development since 2009, and it’s been shelved for two years since its completion, pushed back several times due to the bankruptcy of its production company, Relativity Media. Now out in December, it looks quite like a nice holiday film for the whole family, or perhaps a Vanishing Point for fiercely protective, kickboxing moms. Or even better, maybe it’s a thematic flip on Hollywood’s incorrect, gender-essentialist concept that all fighting films have to have a love subplot to keep women interested when they see it with their MEN—a little token car chase for the beleaguered fellows dragged along by women who are filling the theater with animalistic grunts and fistpumps while Berry takes down her child’s abductor with fisticuffs and a highly convenient sword. Pedal to the metal, mom!
