FILM REVIEW OF ''KIDNAP'' (2017)

Halle Berry lets nothing stop her in “Pusher” director Luis Prieto’s “Kidnap” (*** OUT OF ****) when two predatory rednecks target her six-year old son for abduction in contemporary Louisiana.  This white-knuckled, adrenaline-laced, highway thriller about a mad mom in hot pursuit who refuses to quit is reminiscent of an earlier Halle Berry movie “The Call” (2013) where she portrayed a veteran 911 operator troubled about the welfare of an abducted teenage girl. “The Call” heroine ultimately teamed up with the victim to wreak vengeance on the murderous dastard who had abducted her.  Similarly, Berry is just as driven to catch up with her son’s kidnappers, no matter what the police advise her.  At one point, a policewoman urges her to wait for the authorities to intervene.  Our protagonist relents momentarily until she notices the glut of child abduction posters on a nearby bulletin board and the years that those children have been missing. Mind you, “Kidnap” is one of those contrived, but entertaining Hollywood thrillers where the police are either off elsewhere when needed or useless when involved.  Ultimately, they show up, but they are too late to make a difference.  Nevertheless, in dramatic terms, their last-minute arrival puts the burden on the waitress mom, facing her own child custody battle with her ex-husband and his girlfriend.  When we see Berry for the first time, she is calm and collected. Before “Kidnap” concludes, she is both disheveled and desperate in her efforts to rescue her son.

In a shrewd but calculated effort to endear Karla Dyson’s son Frankie (newcomer Sage Correa) to audiences, director Luis Prieto has appropriated real-life video of the adorable toddler from Correa’s parents.  The prologue in “Kidnap” shows Frankie as a lovable little fellow.  When the story unfolds, he is six-years old, but still lovable.  Frankie is coloring pictures in the restaurant where Karla (Halle Berry of “X-Men: Days of Future Past”) works as a waitress, serving up dishes to diners who aren’t happy.  Sadly, Karla isn’t happy either because she was supposed to have gotten off her shift so she could take Frankie to the city park.  No sooner does she have Frankie at the park than her attorney phones her about her ex-husband’s plans to take her son away from her.  All the racket going on around Karla at the park interferes with her concentration.  She steps away briefly from Frankie to tell her attorney that nobody is going to take her son away from her.  During these short-lived moments, she loses sight of Frankie, and then spots an obese, white woman, Margo (newcomer Chris McGinn), dragging him into her late 1980s’ Green Ford Mustang with a bra over the grille.  Karla scrambles after them, seizes the luggage rack bars atop the car-roof, and is dragged along until the accelerating vehicle jars her hands loose.  Charging off to her red minivan, she drops her cell phone in the street and careens out of the park on the bumper of the Mustang.  As she closes on after them, these fiends hurl everything in the trunk of the Mustang at her.  Happily, Karla swerves out of the path of the debris, but some motorists aren’t so fortunate.  One vehicle tumbles sideways after a spare tire slams into it.  Eventually, the kidnappers hang Frankie’s head out of the passenger’s side door and hold a knife to this throat.  Reluctantly, Karla backs off, but she doesn’t give up her pursuit as easily as the abductors reckoned.

Things complicate quickly when Karla attracts the attention of a motorcycle police officer.  Initially, the cop orders Karla to pull over, but Karla keeps pointing at the Mustang.  Eventually, the cop gets the message, but he finds himself crushed between the recklessly driven Mustang and Karla’s red minivan.  The two cars plow off the highway and onto a grass median where the injured cop crashes his bike.  Karla comes face to face with the kidnappers and tries to bargain with them.  She tosses them her wallet with her credit cards and gives them her pin number in exchange for her son’s life. The tall, lanky, male redneck driver, Terry (Lew Temple of “Lawless”), takes her wallet.  Moments later Karla freaks out when Terry’s mother emerges from the Mustang with the wallet and suggests that Karla take her to the bank to withdraw $10-grand for Frankie.  Naturally, you would never let such a repugnant woman share the same car with you.  Margo slides into the back seat so she can control Karla.  While cruising through an underground, one-lane tunnel, Karla realizes her mistake, and the two women tangle like tigers.  Twisting Karla’s side belt around her neck, Margo strangles her.  Karla ditches Margo, but this isn’t the last that she’ll see of this despicable dame.

Basically, “Kidnap” puts us in the passenger’s seat with Karla as she chases the villains.  Initially, she has little luck catching up with them.  The filmmakers refrain from showing us what little Frankie is enduring until the end when the tension really comes to a boil.  Director Luis Prieto doesn’t pull too many punches because you know our heroine is going to rescue her son.  Nevertheless, our heroine must deal with one infuriating setback after another.  Chiefly, the villains are hopelessly unsavory and have no qualms about endangering innocent bystanders.  Indeed, one pedestrian gets in Terry’s way, and he smashes into her, somersaulting her off the windshield of his stolen car.  Not even the sight of a woman crumpled up on the asphalt in dire need of medical help distracts our brave heroine from letting her adversary escape from her!  Prieto keeps his camera focused tightly on Karla so she is up in our face for the duration of the harrowing chase.  You’ll be pulling your hair out by the roots at the unbearably suspenseful grand finale of “Kidnap” when our heroine finally tracks down Frankie! Clocking in at 95-minutes, “Kidnap” will keep you poised on the edge of your seat.

FILM REVIEW OF ''BAD SANTA 2" (2016)

If you thought “Bad Santa” (2003) was a hoot, you’ll holler at “Bad Santa 2.”  Like its vulgar, politically-incorrect predecessor, this rude, crude, lowest common denominator, gross-out sequel scrapes the bottom of the toilet for bowel humor that may make you gag.  Oscar-winning Billy Bob Thornton of “Sling Blade” reprises his role as lascivious, blasphemous, alcoholic, safecracker Willy Soke, who masquerades as Santa Claus and listens to children’s gift requests on his lap.  Nevertheless, despite its contrived, often predictable, by-the-numbers monkeyshines, “Bad Santa 2” (**** OUT OF ****) is an audaciously sidesplitting saga, with corrosive dialogue that may either incinerate your soul or prompt you to laugh with such vigor that you will cough at the same time.  After a thirteen-year hiatus, not only has Thornton shown up for the sequel, but also teensy Tony Cox and chubby Brent Kelly have also returned respectively as Marcus and Thurman.  Lest we forget, Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer of “The Help” appears briefly again as Opal the prostitute from the original. The latest character to wade into this cesspool of hilarity is Willy’s low-class, repugnant mother.  Kathy Bates never stops surprising us as Sunny Soke, a sleazy, silver-tongued, ex-con wreathed with biker tattoos who wants to steal thousands of dollars.  Sadly, Sunny has grown so decrepit she cannot control her Parkinson’s and requires somebody with steady fingers to crack a safe.  Bates could easily have stolen “Bad Santa 2” with her outlandish portrayal.  Instead, Brent Kelly steals the show as simple-minded moron Thurman Merman who keeps on obliviously weathering Willy’s vile torrents of profanity about his shortcomings.  Miraculously, Kelly maintains a look of deadpan stupefaction throughout these rants that would have reduced a less disciplined actor to ripples of belly laughter.  Indeed, “Mean Girls” director Mark Waters and freshman scenarist Johnny Rosenthal with “Whip It” writer Shauna Cross spurn good taste repeatedly.

“Bad Santa 2” opens with Willy (Billy Bob Thornton of “Fargo”) admitting that his life has been a travesty.  He never succeeds for one reason or another with his suicide attempts.  He is dangling from a ceiling lighting fixture when Thurman, the grown-up kid from the original movie (Brett Kelly of “Unaccompanied Minors”), strolls into his apartment and cannot fathom what Willy is doing.  Eventually, Willy abandons all efforts to hang himself, chiefly after Thurman empties a bag of money onto his table.  As it turns out Willy’s treacherous, accomplice from the first film, the vertically-challenged Marcus Skidmore (Tony Cox of “Beetlejuice”), has invited Willy to join him at a local restaurant so they can discuss business.  Of course, Willy doesn’t trust Markus because the latter tried to murder him in the original.  Marcus hasn’t been out of prison long, and he needs the money.  He explains that Willy’s mom has a plan to rob a high-profile, Chicago-headquartered charity that will bulge their pockets with loot.  Eventually, Willy meets his estranged mother, Sunny (Kathy Bates of “Misery”), again.  She briefs him about the heist.  You’d think any reunion between mother and son would be a joyous, sentimental occasion, but it is far from it.  Willy has no fond memories of his mom.  We learn during one of their conversations that Willy took a fall for her at age eleven and did time for Sunny’s crime.  She confirms in her own words what an unfit mom she was.  Sunny cherishes the memory of Willy’s birth: “Hell, I didn’t even know I’d given birth until I’d tripped over him.”  Willy sidesteps old animosities and pitches in with them to rip off the children’s charity.  As it turns out, a well-to-do married couple who are for all practical purposes estranged conduct the charity.  The charity resembles the Salvation Army.  Diane Hastings (Christina Hendricks of “Drive”) and her husband Regent (Ryan Hansen of “G.I. Joe: Retaliation”) make it easy to contribute to the cause.  You can text your donation to it!  What Diane doesn’t realize is Regent is cheating on her with another employee.  Initially, Willy is not pleased that he must don a Santa Claus suit and solicit donations on the street.  At one point, he clashes with another Santa who claims that Willy has stolen his spot.  The two tangle on the curb, and Willy lands in jail.  Diane has the police release him and she allows Willy to keep his Santa gig if he will accompany her to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.  Reluctantly, for the sake of Sunny and Marcus, Willy follows her, and the two become sexually involved with each other.  Meantime, Willy doesn’t entirely trust his murderous, old nemesis Marcus.  Remember, Marcus tried to kill Willy in the original “Bad Santa.”  Sunny convinces Willy to let bygones be bygones.  If things weren’t tense enough for Willy, he discovers that Thurman has embarked on a journey to search for and surprise him.  Now, Willy must contend with this clueless klutz who wants nothing more than to make him sandwiches. He arranges for Thurman to lose his virginity to Olivia. Before she can accommodate him, Thurman flees in abject terror.

Basically, “Bad Santa 2” regurgitates the same essential plot of the original, but it delivers greater volumes of profanity and sexuality than the former.  The F-word is used 180 times here rather than 130 in the original.  Meaning, the raunchy “Bad Santa 2” lives up to its R-rating “for crude sexual content and language throughout, and some graphic nudity.”  Waters and his two writers have exercised such an extreme lack of good taste that “Bad Santa 2” qualifies as a guilty pleasure. Incidentally, the filmmakers do refrain from depicting murder this time around. You may cringe in retrospect that you sank to such shallow depths of the sake of rib tickling glee.  Some of Sunny’s lines will keep you to cackling. If you indulge in this nonsense, your demented soul will crave the prank in the end credits. Unlike any other movies showing now, “Bad Santa 2” may provide you with some desperate relief from all the Yuletide cheer.

FILM REVIEW OF ''EVERYBODY'S FINE" (2009)

Somebody lied! Nobody is fine in "Waking Ned Devine" writer & director Kirk Jones' family problem potboiler "Everybody's Fine." This maudlin soap opera about a retired widower who embarks on an odyssey of self-discovery is occasionally contrived, constantly predictable, and wholly forgettable. Robert De Niro, Drew Barrymore, Kate
Beckinsale, and Sam Rockwell were simply picking up paychecks when they made this mundane melodrama. Nevertheless, "Everybody's Fine" (** out of ****) belongs to De Niro and his performance is appropriately solemn. There are no outbursts of the primitive rage that occur in his crime pictures. Jones scatters a modicum of humor throughout this 99-minute, PG-13 yarn, replete with low impact surprises. The overall effect is rather bland. We the audience see everything from the father's perspective. Often we are several steps ahead of Frank because Jones allows us to eavesdrop on telephone conversations among the siblings. The most important character here is the deceased off-screen wife who served as the intermediary between the father and his children. Ultimately, "Everybody's Fine" amounts to everybody's bored. Too much bathos and not enough humor paralyze this yawner.

When we meet Frank Goode (Robert De Niro of "Goodfellas"), he is dutifully vacuuming the carpet in his living room, watering the flowers, and mowing the grass. He has a stone cherub fountain on his lawn and the water spouts from the little guy's peter. Clearly, writer & director Kirk Jones must have adored this statue because he sticks it in three shots. This is as close as "Everybody's Fine" comes to irreverent humor. When none of his four grown-up children can make their annual pilgrimage to his house, Frank--who lost his wife eight months earlier--sets out on a cross-country journey to surprise them. He delivers mysterious envelopes to each that contain an old family photograph of his wife and he when the children were youngsters. Frank's conscientious physician, Dr. Ed (James Murtaugh of "Romeo Is Bleeding") warns his patient that he should settle down in the garden and work on his green thumbs rather than go gallivanting all over the country. Most of the surprises that Frank encounters have already been revealed in the trailer.

First, Frank visits his artist son David (Austin Lysy of "Hitch") in New York City, but nobody answers the door. We catch only a couple of glimpses of David, but he figures prominently in this tale. Frank's genuinely troubled son went off to the Big Apple to make a name for himself as an artist. Initially, David wanted only to paint. Frank warns him that painters only paint walls and dogs pee on those walls so
David becomes an artist. When Frank cannot hook-up with David, he slips his letter under his door and heads off to his next stop. Second on Frank's list is Amy (Kate Beckinsale of "Underworld"), his oldest daughter. She works as an advertising executive with a spacious office and has a son, Jack (Lucien Maisel of "Fast Track"), but things are far from right at home. Amy and her husband have separated because she caught him cheating on her with another woman. Jack and his father
don't get along together during a family dinner. Naturally, Frank has no idea why Jack behaves in such an unfriendly fashion toward his father at the table. Amy has to cut short Frank's visit because she has to fly out of town the following day, and Frank hits the road again. Third on his list is his oldest son, Robert (Sam Rockwell of "The Green Mile"), who Frank mistakenly believes is the conductor of a symphony orchestra. Actually, Robert does nothing more than bang the drum. Robert points out to Frank that he is a conductor in other musical venues, but nobody will pay him to be a conductor. He isn't married and he doesn't have children. Fourth, Frank meets his daughter Rosie (Drew Barrymore of "Whip It") in Las Vegas. He learns later during a surreal scene around a picnic table that Rosie is a lesbian with an infant child. Rosie claims that she works as a casino dancer. Despite his medical condition, Frank has no problem riding trains and buses to see his children. He has a brush with a pathetic mugger at a depot, but he manages nicely by himself.Finally, after he sees Rosie, Frank decides to fly home. Frank has a fear of flying, but he is so upset by all the revelations about his children that he just wants to clear out of town pronto. Once he is aboard the plane, he suffers a heart attack and
winds up in the hospital.

More often than not, "Everybody's Fine" seems like a made-for-cable Lifetime movie for old guys. Frank learns that he pushed his kids too hard and that they related better to his now defunct wife than to him. It seems that she kept several important things about their children from him. The most imagination thing about "Everybody's Fine" is when Frank sees his grown-up kids, he sees them as they were when they were
munchkins, very sweet and adorable. No, Frank doesn't die at fadeout, but the ending qualifies as only semi-happy. Eventually, Frank learns what happened to his talented but troubled youngest son. Nevertheless, three out of four isn't bad. This tame tearjerker is only for those who enjoy wiping their eyes and nose with Kleenex every twenty or so minutes. Incidentally, "Everybody's Fine" is a remake of Italian filmmaker Giuseppe Tornatore's "Stanno Tutti Bene" (1990). The cinematography is spectacular and the settings are scenic. Nothing memorable happens in this Miramax underachiever.