Z/Web

Not a bad thriller. This is about a group of kidnappers who have the “perfect” plan: each kidnapping lasts exactly 24 hours. They grab the kid at night and one of the kidnappers takes the kid to a safehouse, while the other stays with the mother. A third stays with the husband. The three stay in touch via a network of cell phones, and they must call in every 30 minutes or the third kidnapper kills the child. The next day the husband gets the money from the bank, and once his captor is gone with the dough, the mother is reunited with the child. None of the families ever go to the police. Of course this wouldn’t be much of a movie if everything went according to plan, right? Of course not. And in this case, a wealthy doctor and his pretty wife (Charlize Theron) fight back. The bulk of the film is Theron and Kevin Bacon (the main kidnapper) and they have excellent chemistry with a lot of fascinating dramatic exchanges. One of the things I liked best about this film, however, is that we actually get to see the doctor husband in action: he’s more than stereotype. So many times in this kind of film the husband’s just an off-screen character we only see once or twice, and we often wonder what the woman sees in him. Yes, we know she loves him, we other than the token “kiss the wife goodbye” scene, we never see it. In this film, however, the husband has a prominent role, and he’s really pretty cool. The whole family is cool, and the little daughter is amazing. I have no idea how old she is in real life, but she gives the best young child performance I’ve seen in ages. Truly remarkable. Overall, this is a good film. It’s got humor, suspense, drama, and action, and it’s well done. However, it ultimately isn’t about anything more than it seems: a family is assaulted and fights back. The end. For it to be a truly great film, it needed some depth. It tries with some of the psychological scenes between Theron and Bacon, but while fascinating, there’s too little depth there for a profound movie experience.