Set during the Jacobite rising of 1745, Delbert Mann’s Kidnapped is a grand adventure, based on not one but two novels by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886’s Kidnapped and part of its sequel, 1893’s Catriona).
Rallying around Bonnie Prince Charlie, who landed in Scotland to restore his father, James Stuart, to the English throne, the Scottish clans of the Highlands have just been handed a crushing defeat by the British army and Scot Loyalists at the Battle of Culloden.
At the same time, young David Balfour (Lawrence Douglas) arrives in Edinburgh and pays a visit to his uncle Ebeneezer (Donald Pleasance). Ebenezer has been holding the family estate, the House of the Shaws, until David came of age. Now that he has, the house and all the surrounding land is to be transferred to David.
But Uncle Ebenezer has other plans. After failing to kill David himself, he makes a deal with Ship’s Captain Hoseason (Jack Hawkins), who kidnaps David, brings him aboard his ship, and sets sail for the Carolina’s, where the young man will be sold into indentured servitude.
During the voyage, the ship collides with a smaller boat, and its lone passenger, Alan Breck (Michael Caine), is brought aboard. Breck, a rebel Highlander and a member of the Stewart clan, befriends David, who overhears that the ship’s crew intends to kill Breck for his money. Teaming up, David and Breck manage to fight off the attack, and with little of its crew left, the ship crashes into a rock formation and sinks.
Washed ashore in Scotland but in the territory of the Campbell’s, a clan that remained loyal to Britain’s current monarch, Breck and David make their way to the home of Breck’s cousin, James Stewart (Jack Watson). Their hope is that James can provide them with money for their journey to Edinburgh, where Breck will board a boat for France and David will settle matters with his treacherous uncle. James is only too happy to assist, and David develops a crush on their host’s pretty daughter Catriona (Vivien Heilbron). But an encounter the next morning with the Campbells, during which the clan’s head, Mungo Campbell (Terry Richards) is gunned down, leads to a skirmish. James Stewart is injured and other members of his family killed, causing Breck, David, and Catriona to flee.
Along the way, the three discover that James survived the gunfight, but is being held by the British for the murder of Mungo Campbell. David, who was standing next to James at the time, knows it was not he who killed Campbell, and plans to visit the British Lord Advocate (Trevor Howard) to plea for James’ release.
But these are treacherous times, and by coming forward to testify against the Crown, David may be putting his own life on the line.
The opening scene, where we see the bloody aftermath of the Battle of Culloden, had me thinking at first that Kidnapped was going to be, at least in part, a film about the Jacobite uprising. It is a large, sprawling sequence, with hundreds of dead bodies littering the ground, and loved ones mourning the loss of their young men as Loyalists take prisoners and execute a few survivors. It’s a scene that would have been at home in any epic war film.
From there, however, Kidnapped narrows its focus, following instead David Balfour and his adventures, as well as his ever-changing opinions of new friend Alan Breck, the Scottish Highlands, and the current state of law and order in Scotland.
To the film’s credit, it does not totally praise or condemn (at least not for its entire runtime) lead character Alan Breck, the Scot Rebels, the Loyalists, or the Government officials who are holding James Stewart, and who intend to continue with his execution even after learning of his innocence. As played by Caine, Alan Breck is a brave fighter who stays loyal to the cause of putting James Stuart back on the English throne, even when his fellow rebels, including cousin James, say the fight has been lost. Breck, who is clearly a skilled warrior, is also prone to act foolish, and in the end refuses to help save James from the Gallows, for what he sees as the “greater good” of Scotland.
On the other side of the struggle, the Lord Advocate, ready to move forward with what is a clear miscarriage of justice, sympathizes with James Stewart’s predicament, and comes to admire David, who, though putting his own life in jeopardy, has every intention of doing the right thing. Even David’s uncle Ebenezer, a clear-cut villain at the outset, becomes a bit more sympathetic when we learn why he acted as he did.
Having never read either novel, I can only assume these dualities were present in Stevenson’s work, and I applaud screenwriter Jack Putnam and director Delbert Mann for keeping them intact.
Kidnapped is, without a doubt, a fun adventure movie, but its characters are far from one-dimensional, and that always makes for a more rewarding experience.
Rating: 8.5 out of 10
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