© 2024 KPCW

KPCW
Spencer F. Eccles Broadcast Center
PO Box 1372 | 460 Swede Alley
Park City | UT | 84060
Office: (435) 649-9004 | Studio: (435) 655-8255

Music & Artist Inquiries: music@kpcw.org
News Tips & Press Releases: news@kpcw.org
Volunteer Opportunities
General Inquiries: info@kpcw.org
Listen Like a Local Park City & Heber City Summit & Wasatch counties, Utah
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Sundance '24 Review | FIVE SUNS | 'Kidnapping, Inc.'

Samuel Andri and Rolaphton Mercure appear in Kidnapping Inc. by Bruno Mourral, an official selection of the Midnight program at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
Samuel Andri and Rolaphton Mercure appear in Kidnapping Inc. by Bruno Mourral, an official selection of the Midnight program at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

In Haiti, where snatching people is almost a major sector of the economy, two inept hired hoods are desperate after their Very Important Captive suffers a fatal accident.


Much like a Guy Ritchie-style black crime comedy, the plot complications ripple out to also involve a populist Presidential candidate, a nasty, corrupt police chief; a tourist couple consisting of a hapless husband and a very pregnant wife; and a phantom motorcycle assassin.

But co-writer and director Bruno Mourral casts all of this against an incisive overview of a poor dysfunctional island-nation, where hope exists only in the lottery, soccer madness and possible escape to the U.S.

Judging by the director’s comments to a festival audience, you could make a film out of the real-life struggles to get the movie made — a Covid interruption, the lack of film infrastructure, and the actual kidnapping of three crew members.