Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A hugely underrated elegiac adventure, 29 April 2007
Delbert Mann's hugely underrated 1971 version of Kidnapped takes a more fatalistic approach to the story than might be expected. Rather than opt for easy swashbuckling, Alan Breck is here a man in constant denial as he travels through a defeated landscape rife with disillusion in the wake of the Battle of Culloden, while David Balfour is trying to make sense of a world where those who are supposed to be on his side are far less honourable than those supposed to be his enemies.
Blessed with a superb script by Jack Pullman (with some elegantly witty dialogue), a beautiful score by Roy Budd and a wonderful use of location that really comes alive in widescreen, it also works as a pretty good adventure movie, and if Michael Caine is phenomenally miscast as the Jacobite rebel he makes a surprisingly good job of it, as do most of the impressive supporting cast. Only Freddie Jones in a typical display of stilted ham lets the side down. The film was a famously troubled production, with many of the cast and crew reportedly unpaid, but thankfully shows few signs of it on the screen.
Network's new impressive 2.35:1 widescreen release keeps the trailer and original featurette from the previous Carlton release and also adds a trio of unrelated Michael Caine interviews (two with Russell Harty and one with Gloria Hunniford) as well. Recommended - but be warned that the DVD menu is absurdly awkward to navigate.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great historical epic, very well reconstructed, 15 April 2007
I spent two weeks last summer in Scotland, and went to all the places that figure prominently in this film: Culloden Moor, Edinburgh Castle, Ediburgh Old Town, saw the picturesque wild landscapes, and learnt about the story of the Jacobite rising of 1745 and of its defeat that is the setting for the film. Everything in the reconstruction is right, including the accents of the actors, the clothes, uniforms, weapons, as well as the atmosphere of the times, and these were sad and brutal times for Scotland.
The story, set in this background, is one of a young man, David Balfour, who comes to claim his inheritance from his uncle after his father's death. The uncle first tries to kill him and then sells him to the captain of a ship bound for America, the Carolinas more precisely, to be sold there as an indentured servant. Through a chance meeting with Alan Berk Stewart, a Jacobite gentleman fleeing from the defeat at Culloden, he manages to escape and land ashore. He then follows Berk as he tries to join other Jacobites who might help him to leave for France.
Our young hero, a very idealistic Scottish lowlander who fate decides should be friend of Jacobite rebels, finally manages to reclaim his inheritance and also to find love. All the while being caught in the middle of this Civil War. It is fought between the English red-coated army supported by Scottish lowlanders and the Highland clansmen. They support two different branches of the royal family claiming the combined thrones of England and Scotland, i.e. on the one hand the "legitimate" but absolutist Stewart heirs, of Scottish origin, or Jacobites ( after James II, expelled from the throne in 1688), against the Hanoverian or German princes chosen and backed by the English parliament.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great film, shame about the plot deviations., 13 Feb 2005
Bought this film the other day simply because it was "Kidnapped"- possible my favourite novel to date. I didn't expect much from an old film like this but was very pleasantly surprised. The film starts off with scenes of the aftermath of the battle of Culloden and some back ground information on the Jacobite rebellion. This sets the scene well for the rest of the film in which David Balfour, a supporter of the king, becomes caught up with Alan Breck- a Jacobite fleeing for his life. There are a few annoying changes from the storyline of the novel, for me the most irritating being that in the novel Catriona is the daugter of James Moore not James of the Glens (James Stewart)as in the film. I understand that deviations from the plot are often necessary but the film would have been better, in my opinion, had it left Catriona out altogether and had the ending more true to the book with Alan leaving for France and not giving himself up to the Red Coats. Still, a worthy adaptaion wholy worth the 4 stars.
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