{"id":3753,"date":"2024-08-29T21:56:27","date_gmt":"2024-08-29T21:56:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=3753"},"modified":"2024-10-14T00:26:50","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T04:26:50","slug":"the-kidnapping-of-the-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/29\/the-kidnapping-of-the-president\/","title":{"rendered":"The Kidnapping of the President"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Kidnapping of the President <\/strong>(1980)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Crown International\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 114 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: George Mendeluk\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Richard Murphy and Charles Templeton\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Paul Zaza and Nash the Slash\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Mike Molloy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 15, 1980 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: William Shatner, Hal Holbrook, Van Johnson, Ava Gardner, Miguel Fernandes, Cindy Girling, Elizabeth Shepherd, Michael J. Reynolds, Gary Reineke, Maury Chaykin, Murray Westgate, Ken Anderson, Sully Boyar, Aubert Pallascio.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0One of the rules of cinema I (jokingly) came up with in my youth is this: If Maury Chaykin (Soup for One, Def-Con 4) or Harvey Atkin (Meatballs, Visiting Hours) is in it, it\u2019s Canadian. Well, it was true in most cases. I\u2019m telling you this because Chaykin has a small role in The Kidnapping of the President<\/strong>, a Canadian-made action thriller starring William Shatner (whoa, another Canadian!) as a Secret Service agent tasked with rescuing the President (Holbrook, The Fog) after he\u2019s taken prisoner by a South American revolutionary.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by George Mendeluk (Stone Cold Dead, Meatballs III), The Kidnapping of the President<\/strong> is what\u2019s known as a \u201ctax shelter film\u201d. That\u2019s a film made in Canada between 1975 and 1982 when the federal government allowed investors to deduct 100% of their investment from their taxable income. Other movies falling under that category include The Silent Partner, Meatballs, City on Fire, Prom Night, My Bloody Valentine and Porky\u2019s. Speaking as a connoisseur of trashy movies, some of them were pretty decent and others were garbage. The Kidnapping of the President<\/strong> (btw, LOVE that title!) is an example of the former.<\/p>\n

\u00a0President Adam Scott is about to embark on a diplomatic visit to Toronto despite being warned of a potential assassination attempt by his head of security, Agent Jerry O\u2019Connor (Shatner). He\u2019s right, there is something brewing. South American revolutionary Roberto Assanti (Fernandes, The Amateur), looking to finance his \u201ccause\u201d, plans to abduct the Commander-in-Chief and hold him in an armored truck until his demand for $100 million in diamonds is met. Not only is the vehicle wired to explode if anybody tries to tamper with it, he has an unknown accomplice (Girling, Meatballs) nearby should anything happen to him. While O\u2019Connor races against the clock to rescue Scott, the final decision to pay the ransom or not lies with the Vice President (Johnson, Battleground). If it\u2019s not paid, our country\u2019s leader will die. If it is, it\u2019ll make our country look weak in the face of terrorism.<\/p>\n

\u00a0For the record, Chaykin plays a third accomplice who\u2019s killed early on in a shoot-out with police at a gas station. Too bad, he always brought something cool to the table. That being said, let\u2019s talk about the rest of the movie. For one thing, The Kidnapping of the President<\/strong> plays like a made-for-TV movie with swear words and some bloody violence. There\u2019s nothing especially theatrical about it. In fact, I don\u2019t recall it ever playing in the Philadelphia area. As a 12YO movie lover with an interest in US Presidents, I would have been all over it. I can\u2019t believe it\u2019s taken me this long to watch it. But now I have and I like it for the most part.<\/p>\n

\u00a0If anybody can save the President, it\u2019s William Shatner, a stalwart action hero whose previous job involved trekking around the stars. What can I say about Shatner that hasn\u2019t already been said? His acting style is best described as singular. He\u2019s always fun to watch especially when he tries to play it straight as he does here. He alone makes The Kidnapping of the President<\/strong> worth watching. However, I\u2019d be remiss if I didn\u2019t call attention to Ava Gardner\u2019s (Earthquake) hammy performance as the Vice President\u2019s wife. I can\u2019t speak to her sobriety or mental state at the time of filming, but I get the impression she thinks she\u2019s playing Lady Macbeth. Listen to her as she encourages her husband to make a power play by not paying the ransom. I actually laughed out loud. Holbrook is pretty good as President Scott even though we never get a \u201cGet off my plane!\u201d moment.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Adapted from co-writer Charles Templeton\u2019s novel, The Kidnapping of the President<\/strong> is a decent late 70s\/early 80s action-thriller. It moves along at a fairly nice clip. It has the usual story elements like the obligatory jurisdictional disputes with other federal law enforcement agencies. There\u2019s always that one FBI agent who thinks he knows best, but really doesn\u2019t. Released by Crown International Pictures, the same studio behind many a late 70s\/early 80s drive-in T&A comedy, it\u2019s a low budget piece which I think works in the picture\u2019s favor. There\u2019s a lot to be said for movies without superstars or costly action set-pieces. This way, the viewer can just focus on the rambling storyline. Hey, I never said The Kidnapping of the President<\/strong> is perfect.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It has its flaws, but I still like The Kidnapping of the President<\/strong>. I knew not to expect much going in; in turn, my expectations were exceeded a bit. The action scenes are well-mounted. The cast is more than capable. The story is engaging. Besides, how can I knock a picture whose poster has boxes with the stars\u2019 faces under the title? This is a solid three-star flick!\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Kidnapping of the President (1980)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Crown International\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 114 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: George Mendeluk\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Richard Murphy and Charles Templeton\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Paul Zaza and Nash the Slash\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Mike Molloy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 15, 1980 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: William Shatner, Hal Holbrook, Van Johnson, Ava Gardner, Miguel Fernandes, Cindy Girling, Elizabeth Shepherd, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5460,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure","category-b-movies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/The-Kidnapping-of-the-Presi.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3753"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5461,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3753\/revisions\/5461"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}