The Little Kidnappers

92 Mins
1990
en

star5.1/ 10

Loosely based on a '50's movie of the same name, it tells the story of two young orphan boys who travel by themselves from the Old country to join their father's family in Canada. There they encounter their stern disciplinarian grandfather who has alienated himself from some of his neighbors. There is particularly no love lost between the grandfather and his Dutch neighbors, who he generalizes as being responsible for his son's death in the Boor War. A side product of this animosity is that it is keeping apart the boy's aunt and her Dutch doctor suitor. The two boys change everything though when they find a young baby on the beach...

Review

CinemaSerf

I don't suppose it's very often that anyone would have to compare Charlton Heston with Scottish actor Duncan Macrae but this remake of the 1953 story gives us the chance - and to be honest, I preferred the original. The tale finds two young orphans traveling to Nova Scotia to be with their grandfather. He's a stern man who wants no truck with his Boer neighbours. The youngsters initially fall in with his attitudes, but boys will be boys and gradually they make their own choices. Things come to an head when they discover a baby on the dunes by the sea and secretly try to rear him whilst all hell breaks loose in their community terrified about the whereabouts of the missing child. This is a gentle story that deals with bigotry and hatred pointing out the futility and negativity of such behaviour, and also of how optimism is bourne by future generations who refuse to be bogged down in the failings of past generations. It's nicely shot, the cast do a decent job and the film is perfectly watchable, if really only notable for the attendance of this Hollywood legend.