Had it not been for Imran Khan , Sanjay Gadhvi's movie Kidnap might have been a good nap.
Picking out plot-holes in this purported thriller can be a tedious job as tiring as a chubby Sanjay Dutt hopping across the roof-beams of an under-construction high-rise building in pursuit of his daughter's kidnapper. Quite obviously, the lithe kidnapper slips out of his hands, just like the plot keeps slipping out of Gadhvi's grip throughout the course of this strictly timepass film.
The only silver lining is Imran Khan, who, armed with his mysterious screen presence, holds you to your seat for most part of the film. But then, every silver lining has a dark cloud nearby.
The movie tells the story of a young, angst-filled man (Imran Khan) who kidnaps the daughter ( Minissha Lamba ) of a rich industrialist (Sanjay Dutt) to settle an old score. Instead of demanding a huge ransom, the kidnapper holds the businessman to ransom and plays a game with him. In the game, the kidnapper makes him do things like burgle a rival's house, rescue a prisoner from a high-security jail, and even kill someone.
Now, there has to be a reason strong and sound enough for the kidnapper to make the businessman do such crazy things. When that subplot is revealed, the movie hits rock bottom and you somehow manage to stop yourself from pulling your hair. The subplot shows how Dutt had once wronged a teenaged boy. Without giving away the plot, I will safely add that it is so embarrassing to watch that you want to hurl your popcorn bucket to the screen, if only you hadn't paid out of your own wallet for it.
Thriller is a genre that doesn't allow room for much cinematic liberty. The script has to be taut and the plot must unfold in such a way that the viewer is able to piece together the jigsaw and connect the dots by the end. But what you come across in 'Kidnap' are a lot of missing pieces and loose ends.
Sanjay Gadhvi doesn't rely so much on logic as on convenience. He shows the captive Minissha Lamba fashionably dressed in clothes so skimpy that they keep distracting the sullen kidnapper time and again. And as a viewer, you completely empathize with the lad. For, throughout her captivity, Minissha's character is undeviatingly focused on her dresses, be them cleavage-flaunting gowns or hot pants with shimmering belly chains to boot.
Imran Khan holds the film together by rising above the shoddy script solely by dint of his performance. Though he doesn't do anything stellar, there's something about him that catches your eye whenever he is on the screen. Hot as a potato and cool as a cucumber, Imran walks through his role with menacing ease. Minissha performs well but her styling looks very odd on her character. Sanjay Dutt is okay as long as he doesn't do action. There's a scene in which he tells the kidnapper to go to hell, and his wife, Vidya Malvade , vents out her anger on Dutt. He turns to her and says: “you're over-reacting”. He should've said “you're over acting”.
'Kidnap' does have a few good sequences. The movie's music is average and the item by Sophie Choudhary or the beach song by Minissha fails to lift your spirits.
What does kick the adrenaline is a superbly executed chase sequence in which Imran hops across buildings and climbs up scaffoldings like a monkey. For this sequence and for Imran's performance, 'Kidnap' gets two stars.
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