A Kind of Kidnapping
When a corrupt politician is kidnapped by incompetent crooks, he attempts to turn the situation to his advantage.
Patrick Baladi
It is often said that comedy is the standout category when it comes to reactions to films depending on the personal taste of the viewer. With that in mind perhaps I ought not to be too surprised that D. G. Clark (who sometimes likes to be known as Dan Clark) carried off the award for best screenplay at the 2023 Manchester International Film Festival. His film, A Kind of Kidnapping, also won two additional prizes at that festival including one for its leading actress Kelly Wenham. Consequently this feature, the first that Clark has made for the cinema although he is well-established in television and is also known for his acting, sounded in prospect to be very promising indeed. Nevertheless, for all of Clark's experience, my own reaction was to find his screenplay so ill-judged that it meant that a game cast were hamstrung by it.
A Kind of Kidnapping concerns a youngish couple living in Newcastle: they are Maggie (Wenham’s role) and Brian (Jack Parry-Jones) and we first meet them in a pre-credit sequence wearing face hoods and standing over a man who is tied and bound, this being a politician named Richard Hardy (Patrick Baladi). Comedies featuring incompetent crooks are nothing new and one idea that turns up here, the notion of seizing a spouse for ransom only to discover that the partner is glad to be rid of them, was the pivot of the Bette Midler movie Ruthless People (1986) having earlier played a part in the British comedy Too Many Crooks (1959). But, if A Kind of Kidnapping sometimes recycles old ideas, for the most part it looks set to draw on contemporary life in unsettled Britain. There's been no levelling up in this film’s Newcastle, Maggie and Brian are struggling to keep going (their post brings an eviction notice) and the man they kidnap is a deeply unsympathetic upper-class Tory politician only interested in promoting himself in the hope of becoming prime minister. There is potential here for an effective comedy and, indeed, we do get the occasional good line as when Hardy tries to ingratiate himself with his captors by remarking "I voted for gay marriage, you know".
But for the material to take off the writing needs to be sure-footed and Clark’s screenplay seems to throw everything in regardless of whether or not it will cohere. Some aspects of the piece could be seen as satirical, but there is no sense of credibility here which makes it bizarre when late on the film seems to wish to come closer to drama (one such moment asks if the couple’s relationship has been weakened by their choosing not to have a child). From the outset, A Kind of Kidnapping seeks to be trendy (lots of strong language, Maggie sitting on the toilet, dick jokes, the decision to portray Maggie as a stronger character than Brian) and then about an hour in it moves into the territory of black comedy as blood splatters. At this moment one realises that Clark is seeking to give us a mix in the tradition of the Coen brothers. But in their different ways films as diverse in tone as Raising Arizona and Fargo drew on highly sophisticated screenplays whereas the writing we get here often feels quite juvenile. I was actually surprised to discover that Clark was born in 1976 since in my eyes this film was playing like the work of a young man whose ambition far exceeds his talent.
Admittedly it could be argued that A Kind of Kidnapping seeks to be clever by deliberately wrong-footing the audience. A case in point is the characterisation of Maggie. Making her more forceful than Brian suggests that we are invited to treat her as the film’s heroine but when early on we see her working as a waitress and being rude to a posh customer we are not on her side. Subsequently her involvement with Hardy cuts across everything she seems to stand for. Clark could claim that he is developing the character in a way that makes the scope of his satire wider but the way in which it plays merely makes the film seem unconvincing (that illustrates the extent to which Wenham is at the mercy of the script). If this makes the film messy, so too does the structure which moves forward day by day but keeps incorporating flashbacks that fill in what has been missed out (that customer in the restaurant is in fact Hardy and the scene belatedly shows how Maggie first set eyes on him). These inserts may flesh out the story but their placing feels clumsy.
Clark’s writing rather than his direction is what is adrift here and he does show an interest in using classical music in unexpected ways. The film actually concludes with part of the Dies Irae from Mozart's ‘Requiem’! It can also be said that the film is very competently photographed by Ben Saffer. But ultimately the film sinks or swims according to how you respond to the screenplay: is it an example of modern comedy that knows its audience or is it a banal blend that doesn't begin to work? You pays your money (or not) and takes your choice.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Patrick Baladi, Kelly Wenham, Jack Parry-Jones, Olivia Poulet, Leila Hoffman, Luke McQueen, Sherelle Armstrong, Johanna Allitt, Gary Kitching, Sharuna Sagar.
Dir D. G. Clark, Pro Richard Wylie, Screenplay D.G. Clark, Ph Ben Saffer, Pro Des Ruby Alexandra Hirst, Ed Rachel Durance, Music Darren Berry.
Hook Pictures production/Access Entertainment/Lorton Entertainment-Bulldog Film Distribution.
84 mins. UK. 2023. UK Rel: 14 July 2023. Cert. 15.
