The Sunday Mail
IT’S been 26 years since the world was first introduced to the incomparable Halle Berry.
But for all the Oscar, Primetime Emmy and Golden Globe awards; for all the hits like “Jungle Fever” and “X-Men”; the films I mostly remember Berry for are two straight DVD flicks: “The Call” and her recent project, “Kid- nap”.
Yes, there was that Oscar-worthy performance in “Monster’s Ball” and her take as a Bond girl in “Die Another Day”, but for some reason these movies never really moved me.
She is best when cast as the lead, not as the transient love interest of the main actor. Consider the Gold Stars production “Kidnap”, is which she is the star and executive producer.
The film follows Karla Dyson (Berry), a diner waitress, whose six-year-old son Frankie (Sage Correa) gets kidnapped at a park.
The kidnappers — Lew Temple (Terrence Vikky) and Chris McGinn (Margo Vikky) — are part of a three-man operation that sells young children to the highest bidders.
Unfortunately, this time they kidnap the wrong woman’s child, and the heat that comes their way from Berry’s Dyson character is something they had not contended with.
There isn’t much of a script and the cast is small. And this allows Berry to full take centre stage.
She is the every-woman; a single mom, stuck in a dead-end job whose only mistake on the day is to take her son to the park as promised.
Dyson is relentless and courageous in her pursuit of the kidnappers.
The US$21 million budget film has grossed an estimated US$30 million.
