Kidnapping people for a living

Raymond Chandler once said there were only seven plots. Everything else was just variations on a theme.

The idea came back to me as I watched the French thriller In the Shadow of Iris (Netflix). It starts interestingly enough with a kidnapping but there are so many convolutions in the storyline afterwards I lost interest half way through and gave up trying to figure it out.

The wife of a Parisian banker is kidnapped. Or is she? Her husband is distraught. Or is he?

Chandler said something else interesting as well: In a whodunit, the identity of the killer should not only be clever… but inevitable.

You couldn’t say that about this film. The twists are gratuitous or sensational for their own sake. Neither are any of the characters attractive. You have to like someone to care what happens to them. If you don’t, no matter how ingenious the plotline, it goes for nothing.

Shifts

Here we get identity shifts, sexual deviance, chronological imbalances and tasteless dialogue. It’s a smorgasbord of excess that shouts when it should whisper. The gruesome finale leaves you with a feeling of “So what?”

A much better kidnapping film is Ron Howard’s Ransom (1996). This is available to buy on Amazon and other sites. Mel Gibson is on fire here.  Gary Sinise always plays villains with great credibility. He does so again here.

Rene Russo is Gibson’s wife. Their son is snatched at a playground. Afterwards we get two hours of white knuckle tension.

What kicks the film off is the fact that Gibson refuses to pay the kidnappers. This is unusual as he’s a very wealthy man. The film owes its origin to a Glenn Ford film of the same name from 40 years before. If you’re interested you can order this from the Canadian website, Golden Era Classics.

Fearful decision

The Ford film in its turn was based on a 1954 TV programme called Fearful Decision where Ralph Bellamy plays a wealthy man who decides to use his money to track down the kidnappers instead of paying them. A brave decision though one clearly fraught with danger.

I see Liam Neeson has said he’s about to retire from action films. It’s about time, Liam. You’re now tipping 69. I know he does a lot of his own stunts but the idea of people like Neeson (or Harrison Ford or Clint Eastwood) jumping from trains or hanging off airplanes in 2021 is ridiculous. They’re long past Free Travel age. What price credibility?

Kidnapping occurs in nearly all of Neeson’s Taken films. I enjoyed these up to a point but it got to the stage where there were very few people in his life that hadn’t been snatched.

I had visions of watching ‘Taken 17’ in 2029 where the tally of people stolen from his life would include his babysitter, his au pair, his manservant, the doorman at his apartment and the seventh cousin of his pen pal from Normandy.