The Kidnapping of the President | Through the Shattered Lens

With the passing of Robert Redford last week, I want to start things off by recommending one of his last films, 2013’s All Is Lost. Redford gives a great performance as a nameless man trying to survive on a damaged boat. The film opens with a brief Redford voice over and then, towards the end of the film, Redford utters one other line. Even without dialogue, Redford dominates the screen and shows why he was one of great movie stars. All Is Lost is streaming on Tubi.

Also streaming on Tubi is 1972’s Jeremiah Johnson, starring Redford as a mountain man who is trying to escape from civilization. Jeremiah Johnson is today probably best-known for giving the world the nodding Redford meme but it’s also a strong film in its own right and it features Redford at his best. Jeremiah Johnson can be viewed here.

I was very happy to recently see that one of my favorite films, 1982’s Split Image, is now streaming on Tubi. Split Image is one of those films that I am always recommending to anyone who hasn’t seen it. Michael O’Keefe plays a college athlete who is brainwashed into joining a cult led by Peter Fonda. O’Keefe’s father (Brian Dennehy) hires a sleazy cult deprogammer (James Woods) to rescue his son. This is an intelligent and well-acted film. It was also shot in my part of the world. If you watch it, pay attention to the scene in which O’Keefe is abducted from a college campus. The scene was shot at Richland Community College. It’s a lovely campus that still looks the same in 2025 as it did in 1982. Split Image is on Tubi.

James Woods and Brian Dennehy also teamed up in 1987’s Best Seller, a smart thriller that was written by Larry Cohen and directed by Rolling Thunder’s John Flynn. Dennehy plays a cop-turned-writer. Woods plays the hitman who has decided that he wants Dennehy to write his life story. Best Seller can be viewed here.

2013’s The Spectacular Now is listed as “leaving soon” over on Tubi so now is as good a time as any for you to watch this well-written and surprisingly poignant coming-of-age story. Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley both give strong performance as teen lovers. Kyle Chandler steals the film as Teller’s alcoholic father. The Spectacular Now is streaming here.

In a world where politics is becoming increasingly violent, 2008’s The Baader Meinhof Complex feels as relevant as ever. This film takes a look at the group of middle and upper-class activists who decided to play at being revolutionaries and how their actions spiraled out of-control. This film is a powerful portrait of a group of people who some proclaimed to be heroes and who some (correctly) portrayed to be political LARPers. It can be viewed on Prime.

Follow up The Baader Meinhof Complex with 1988’s Patty Hearst, Paul Schrader’s film about the kidnapping and subsequent brainwashing of heiress Patty Hearst. The film’s first half is especially harrowing. By the end of the film, Patty has almost become a powerless bystander as she watches her own story unfold in front of her. Patty Hearst can be viewed on Tubi.

1974’s Big Bad Mama is a Roger Corman-produced Depression epic, in which Angie Dickinson and her daughters rob banks and shoot guns. This one is worth watching not just for Dickinson’s performance but also for the supporting turns of two very different actors, William Shater and Tom Skerritt. It can be viewed on Prime.

William Shatner is also present in The Kidnapping of the President (1980), a Canadian-made and -set film in which President Hal Holbrook is taken hostage while visiting Toronto. William Shatner is the Secret Service agent negotiating for the President’s release. Van Johnson is the Vice President and Ava Gardner is his wife. Maury Chaykin appears as one of the kidnappers. With a cast like that, you can be assured that there’s not a piece of unchewed scenery to be found in this slight but entertaining thriller. It is streaming on Tubi.

Finally, it doesn’t get more 70s than 1973’s The Harrad Experiment, in which a group of students enroll at Harrad College, a progressive school where everyone is encouraged to lose their clothes, hug trees, and have open relationships. James Whitmore and Tippi Hedren play the unlikely founders of the college. Don Johnson, Laurie Walters, and Bruno Kirby are students. Fred Willard has a brief cameo as himself. It’s not necessarily a good film but it’s such a product of its time that it’s interesting from a historical perspective. It’s streaming on Prime.

Click here for last week’s films!

Agency was not the only Canadian film to be made about American politics in 1980. There was also The Kidnapping of the President, a low-budget political thriller that, because it has since slipped into the public domain, can currently be found in a few dozen DVD box sets. In fact, you may very well own a copy of The Kidnapping of the President without even realizing it!

Don’t worry if you do. The Kidnapping of the President is a fairly harmless little film.

U.S. President Adam Scott (Hal Holbrook) is visiting Toronto when he gets handcuffed to a South American revolutionary named Roberto Assanti (Miguel Fernandes). Assanti locks President Scott in an armored car that is wired with explosives and then demands a hundred million in diamonds and two planes. (Though the film never explicitly states it, I imagine that Assanti was primarily motivated by jealousy over the fact that Che is on a million t-shirts while Assanti remains fairly unknown.) It’s up to secret service agent Jerry O’Connor (William Shatner) to negotiate with Assanti and rescue the President! Meanwhile, the ethically compromised Vice President (Van Johnson) is left as acting President in Washington and struggles to keep things calm while his ambitious wife (Ava Gardner) plots for a brighter future.

Overall, the Kidnapping of the President is okay for what it is. It’s neither exceptionally good nor memorably bad. It just sort of is. Hal Holbrook is always well-cast as a President and William Shatner gives a typical Shatner performance, which is either a good or a bad thing depending on how you feel about William Shatner. And, for that matter, Miguel Fernandes is a properly unlikable villain though he never really seems to have the charisma necessary to make him believable as the dynamic leader that he’s supposed to be.

Probably the most interesting thing about The Kidnapping of the President is that it doesn’t try to pass Montreal off for being a location in the United States. Instead, the film was not only filmed in but is actually set in Toronto as well. When Jerry attempts to deal with the local authorities, that means that he ends up talking to a bunch of very polite men in red uniforms.

But what’s strange about this is that the people of Toronto are so excited about the arrival of the President. You half expect to hear one extra say, “I never thought I’d live long enough to see the day that a leader that I can’t vote for and who has next to nothing to do with my everyday life would come to visit Toronto.”

Don’t get me wrong. If you follow me on twitter, then you know that I am unashamed to declare my love for all things Canadian. And obviously, as neighbors, Canada and the United States do have a close relationship. But would people in Toronto really be that excited to see the President?

If so, I think we really owe the people of Canada an apology for not knowing more about their government. At the very least, we should definitely invite Stephen Harper over for lunch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqyWEPkdxn4