Halle Berry Reinforces Our Favorite Fear: Kids Are Snatched the Second Mom Looks Away

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Halle Berry is not, I suppose, to blame for making an entire movie based on the idea that kids get snatched by strangers in the middle of the day from sun-dappled playgrounds. (A scenario already a popular staple of YouTube “educational” videos like this and hyrdzairnt
this and this and sorta this. And here’s one from Latvia!). Message: All it takes is a second and your kid could be gone FOREVER.

And yet, this movie — imaginatively titled “Kidnap” — will provide more Technicolor reinforcement of the notion that any mom who turns her head away for even a second is going to live to regret it.

This in turn reinforces the notion that a good mom NEVER takes her eyes off her kids, because why would she when it’s so friggin’ dangerous? The only mom who would ever give her kid a single unsupervised second is apparently the kind of mom who deserves jail time, or at least a really mean Facebook video about her parenting fail.

Or, if she’s realllly pretty, an action movie. – L.

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This is the Kidnap trailer, above.

I'm sure he's just playing in the sandbox.

I’m sure he’s just playing in the sandbox. (This is a photo, not the trailer.)

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30 Responses to Halle Berry Reinforces Our Favorite Fear: Kids Are Snatched the Second Mom Looks Away

  1. m August 23, 2016 at 10:39 am #

    Oh great. More ways to reinforce paranoia.

    Liam Neeson is in it? Considering how many movies he has done with kidnapping in them, my advice is:

    Be safe, stay away from Liam. He attracts kidnappers.

  2. Powers August 23, 2016 at 10:43 am #

    Remember, if a stranger kidnaps your son, there’s nothing you’re not morally justified in doing, including reversing on an expressway and causing horrific rollover accidents.

  3. Workshop August 23, 2016 at 11:06 am #

    I think I need to start a new game: Which is more realistic: Avengers or Kidnapped?

    How about Taken or Star Trek?

  4. Melissa August 23, 2016 at 11:26 am #

    Also, apparently after the same kidnapper intentionally slams his car into a cop and (presumably) kills him, the entire police force is NOT on an all-out manhunt, but instead it’s just the mom and her minivan chasing him down.

  5. SteveS August 23, 2016 at 11:27 am #

    I guess I am willing to cut them some slack because most things aren’t depicted that realistically in movies. Even so-called documentaries fabricate things to promote a certain viewpoint. I doubt that the makers of this film genuinely believe that this is a realistic scenario, but they know that people go to see movies that have action, tension, and drama.

    How many here work in a profession that has been depicted in movies or TV? Do they get it right?

  6. Jess August 23, 2016 at 11:45 am #

    That’s one of the things that bothers me so much in Minority Report. They’re at an incredibly crowded pool, yet in the few seconds the dad’s underwater, a stranger manages to grab his son, subdue him, and navigate the crowd of people without any witnesses. For real?

  7. Papilio August 23, 2016 at 12:13 pm #

    Yawn.

    Hence why I loved that NCIS episode that started with dad and young son going to some fair, kid went on ride, dad waved at him every time they saw eachother – and then DAD disappeared without a trace! 😀

  8. BL August 23, 2016 at 12:14 pm #

    @m
    “Be safe, stay away from Liam. He attracts kidnappers.”

    Sure, but if your son was kidnapped, wouldn’t you want Michael Collins or Rob Roy MacGregor on your side?

  9. James Pollock August 23, 2016 at 12:17 pm #

    Nobody who’s seen “Extant” takes Halle Berry seriously as a mother any more.

  10. Vaughan Evans August 23, 2016 at 1:37 pm #

    There are ALWAYS two sides to every issue.
    -When little girls go missing, is does NOT mean that someone abducted me.

    I am 67. Even though I have lived in Vancouver all my life, sometimes I “lose my bearings? If it is cloudy, dark or fogy.

    For one thing, information is always changing..
    Vancouver is a somewhag difficult city gto navigate. Some of Vancouver’s suburbs are more difficul still

  11. Toby in AK August 23, 2016 at 2:37 pm #

    Minivan mom in a car chase against a fox body mustang? This looks like the kind of movie that’s so bad it’s good.

  12. lollipoplover August 23, 2016 at 4:31 pm #

    Halle’s son gets kidnapped and she just straight-up murders a bunch of other innocent people just driving to work by causing massive car accidents?

  13. Kerry August 23, 2016 at 5:10 pm #

    What worries me is her taking her eyes off the road for several seconds while she’s looking at his phone at the beginning of the clip…

  14. Xena August 23, 2016 at 5:22 pm #

    Really! It’s a flashing red light on the toy thingy. Why does she have to look at it?

  15. pentamom August 23, 2016 at 5:40 pm #

    At least she has nice Chuck Taylors for the trip.

    And evidently her gas tank was full, so that’s nice. It would stink to swear you’re never going to stop chasing the guy and then run out of gas after 30 miles.

  16. Donald Christensen August 23, 2016 at 6:20 pm #

    Being scared is fun

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oetVvR5RQUs

    You can enjoy the thrill of being scared while you watch “Kidnap” and you can learn how to be a ‘good mom’ at the same time. As a bonus you can ‘mommy bash’ anyone that isn’t as paranoid as you. This is a great way to feel self righteous!

  17. Donald Christensen August 23, 2016 at 6:39 pm #

    “Sure, but if your son was kidnapped, wouldn’t you want Michael Collins or Rob Roy MacGregor on your side?”

    If my son was kidnapped, I’d rather have Bruce Willis or perhaps Scarecrow. Have you ever read Matthew Reilly? His character Scarecrow makes Chuck Norris look like a boy scout!

    High emotion is fun! Why spoil the party by trying to make the story realistic?

    I thought I had more to say but I have to go now. Keeping up with the Kardashians is almost on and I don’t want to miss any of it.

  18. Michael_oz August 23, 2016 at 10:08 pm #

    Putting the unrealistic storyline aside, I couldn’t help but note that this movie manages to cater to both males and females; females for the story and males for the action.

    (And yes, I am making a generalisation regarding movie content preferences.)

  19. Jodi August 23, 2016 at 10:09 pm #

    I remember there were some “made for TV” movies about children being kidnapped back in the 1990s but they were about kids who were walking home from school or wandering around the neighborhood alone. This movie is about a boy kidnapped with his mom RIGHT THERE PLAYING with him and when she takes his eyes off of him, there are still other people at the park. I guess they couldn’t make a movie about a kid who is allowed some independence and gets kidnapped these days because they want to make the mom ultra perfect and still something happens. She is ACTIVELY playing with boy who appears to be about 7-9 years old, NOT a toddler and he still gets snatched.

    This reminds of a a woman I know who won’t take both of her kids to a park or the children’s museum unless her husband or another adult is with her because she feels she had to shadow each child and she can’t do that if they are playing on separate equipment. She is worried when she is pushing one on the swing and the other wants to go on the slide, a stranger could snatch the child. Same with the children’s museum; she’s worried they’ll take off in different directions and if one gets lost, a stranger could snatch them.

    If she takes them shopping, she only lets one walk at a time while the other sits in the kiddie ride cart and then they switch.

    The kids are both well past the stroller or dart into-a-parking lot stage and are actually quite well behaved but fearful and timid.

  20. hineata August 24, 2016 at 12:01 am #

    Is the kid special needs? Because that phone seemed a trifle toddlerish for a boy the age this actor looks…

  21. sexhysteria August 24, 2016 at 2:21 am #

    The public has sick tastes, cultivated by special interests who profit from mass hysteria. Why don’t we frustrate their strategy and focus on those special interests, instead of focusing on the danger-decoy?

  22. Beth August 24, 2016 at 8:48 am #

    @SteveS, I’m a 911 dispatcher, and the movie The Call, coincidentally also starring Halle Berry, gets it completely wrong.

  23. SKL August 24, 2016 at 10:58 am #

    If it happens on the big screen, then we know it happens all over our neighborhood all the time.

  24. SKL August 24, 2016 at 11:04 am #

    Speaking of movies, remember Kramer vs. Kramer? My friend from a privileged, helicopterish community in a faraway country said she saw that movie and it was so ridiculous because it was obviously fake. For one thing, the 6yo is cooking breakfast. Really? For another thing, the maple leaves are red. Really? I assured her those things really did happen quite regularly in the USA.

    But also, IIRC the little boy falls at the playgound and the sleazy divorce lawyer uses it against the parent (the dad IIRC) in the custody battle. So I guess that isn’t new either, except now it’s the state who tries to take away well-cared-for kids from good parents. :/

  25. Papilio August 24, 2016 at 11:08 am #

    @Hineata: Well, we have already decided that his mom’s actions are completely ridiculous, and, you know, apple, trees….

  26. Becks August 25, 2016 at 4:31 am #

    I thought I had a few things to say, then I saw the trailer – ah it’s that kind of film. It’s not actually a story based remotely in reality.

  27. SanityAnyone? August 25, 2016 at 9:50 am #

    When I saw the trailer this week, I knew you’d have a field day with it. I kept watching to see if it was just a spoof and not a real movie, but was disappointed. That aside, it looks like low-quality dreck.

  28. Fred August 26, 2016 at 8:48 am #

    I watched a documentary a while ago called, Hell’s Highway: The true story of highway safety films. It tells the development of those shocking drivers ed safety films watched in high schools that would show real live accident aftermath footage. It is really an amazing film to behold.

    Well, the same folks who developed those safety films also collaborated with law enforcement to make a series of child kidnap/stranger danger educational films. They introduced all sorts of kidnapping tropes in them like total strangers taking kids out of bed rooms at night through open windows, kidnappers grabbing kids off a play ground when parents were turned away distracted by friends or other kids, 12 year old girls being molested in a van by total strangers. Apparently, the films were viewed in elementary/middle schools all across the mid-west in the 60s and 70s and it makes me wonder if they are not the seed beginnings of how people think about children being kidnapped off the streets before our very eyes.

  29. Ravin August 26, 2016 at 6:32 pm #

    Movies like this can also be used to point out the inverse logic: If someone can snatch your kid while you are standing right there, how is standing right there hovering really making any difference?

  30. Tony September 1, 2016 at 8:42 am #

    Help, my son has been taken by someone in a Mercury Capri …a MERCURY CAPRI!