Kidnapped (1995)
When Scottish young gentleman David Balfour's father dies, he leaves school to collect his inheritance from uncle Ebenezer, who in turn sells the boy as a future slave to a pirate ship. When staunch Stuart dynasty supporter Alan Breck Stewart accidentally boards the ship, he takes David along on his escape back to Edinburgh. They part and meet again repeatedly, mutually helpful against the Redcoats and respectful, although David is loyal to the English crown, but learns about its cruel oppression. Both ultimately face their adversaries.
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While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?
This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.
Most movie adaptations of novels are just that: they pick and choose scenes in the novel to present in movie form, but basically tell the same story to be found in the novel.This is not that. It does present much of what is in Stevenson's novel, yes, and rather faithfully. But it also includes a LOT that is not in the novel, scenes that Stevenson had suggested but never developed. Indeed, as others have pointed out, there are significant characters here who do not exist in the novel.I found it to be a good presentation of Stevenson's novel, and I found Assante to be a lot of fun as Alan Breck Stewart, even if he is more Erol Flynn than ABS. Viewers just have to understand that this is not solely what Stevenson wrote. For that, as others have observed, the Disney treatment from the 1960s is better.Still, this is FAR better than the BBC travesty of the novel, which is far too often unfaithful to the novel, which this really is not. It just adds a lot that is not in the original.
When I read the other reviews I can't believe they cover the same movie, Generally I'm not too critical and enjoy a wide variety of genres, in particular adventure stories and was looking forward to watching this. I haven't read the book but I doubt it would have any impact on my lack of appreciation for this movie. The characters are hollow, the storyline seems patched together and the dialogs are artificial.At the end of the movie, I was left wondering what the whole point of the story was. Perhaps I need to watch it again, perhaps I missed something, but I highly doubt it.
Well, to start with, this version of kidnapped hasn't got much in common at all with the book.That being said, it is a masterpiece in its own right. Unlike most movies, this one is not made to gratify cravings for thrilling immature romance, gory fight scenes, or political ax-grinding.And it is not dull.What drives this movie is its content. The real running theme throughout the movie is what men give their lives for.It's odd, but it has the most peculiarly uplifting execution scene. Very strange.
This is an excellent movie in its own right and seems to be quite faithful to the book. There are elements of the movie that do not show up in RLS's Kidnapped, but there is a sequel, entitled David Balfour, which I have yet to read. I imagine that some of ragmop's complaints of inaccuracy may be answered by this book. My one suggestion would be for the viewer to do a little studying of the this period of Scottish history, as this will help make the movie flow better.As others have mentioned, this movie is made even better by the fact that it is even suitable for young children to watch. It would be nice if filmmakers followed this movie's example and made more action and adventure movies that are really safe for the entire family.