I have long forgotten how a Kelvin Tong film looks and sounds like. My last outing was 'The Maid'. After reading the phrase 'shock tactics' from some reviews of his earlier films, I began to recall and could imagine what I was going to experience in 'The Kidnapper'. For me, the trailer is crisp and compelling. In a way, it transplants the spirit of HK-style crime-films into a more sterile Singapore landscape. So there goes my $8.50.
About after 2 hours of virtually 'riding' in Christopher Lee's cab, I emerged from the cinema feeling like I had a little wound that was not in need of greater nursing. At the beginning, the film was sucks you in faster than you can say 'I am really getting my money's worth'. And watching it reminded me it takes someone quick-witted like Kelvin Tong to outsmart you at twist and turn of the film. Add Ken Kwek (writer of 'The Blue Mansion) to the equation and you have more than your weary post-work-week-Friday-brain can deal with. Indeed, my mind was working hard to catch up with this roller coaster ride. However, at the end of the ride, I thought, a few nuts and bolts less and this whole thing could give way.
Here are some of the film's missing nuts and bolts in order of appearance (or lack-of):
- Gagging a child and ragging him away in an arcade without anyone noticing?
- What's the purpose of the voice defect of the tycoon?
- Why bother extorting $1m from a lowly taxi driver and not move on to another target?
- How could the boy survive at least an hour zipped up in a luggage?
- The boy could write an iphone 3GS application for his bionic ability to extrapolate distances from taxi fares.
- Why did the girl write her mum's number on the Singapore flyer glass window? Is she psychic?
- Why did tourists in the flyer capsule do nothing upon witnessing a kidnap?
- Why did the tycoon do nothing despite his wife's outpouring of the truth? In his position, I would have expected him to contribute something (other the visual novelty of speaking with a speech aid)
- Can people breathe locked up in a car boot?
- Surely you could get the police involved at some stage rather than take the law in your own hands, especially in Singapore.
- Such poor planning by Phyllis Quek's character... am sure she was smarter than to dig her own grave.
- The boy still seems so energetic despite having buckets of blood sucked out from him.
- The taxi flying in mid-air upon the impact of hitting the van was too much of a stretch (certainly not helped by the representative use of a toy car).
- Again, what's with the boy and endless energy after losing so much blood?
- They didn't need to fight it out in water, felt like the art director wanted it.
- Life seems to go back to as if nothing's happened at the end. Don't think the boy fears another kidnap from his demeanour at the end of the film.
- Last but not least, for all his inhumanity, the only retribution he gets is to die in a fight? (No wonder it's a dark film).
Having said these, perhaps you might still want to catch the film to measure up my words against what you see. Then at least, I have given this little note about "Kidnapper' a happy ending.
