by Alyssa De Leo
Worth: $12.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Jussi Vatanen, Aku Sipola, Pertti Sveholm, Riitta Havukainen, Elsa Saiso
Intro:
Its bizarre, but true, premise is one of the main pleasures of The Kidnapping of a President.
Mixing history and comedy as political satire like The Death of Stalin, The Kidnapping of a President is based on a remarkably wild true story.
The Kidnapping of a President is set against the backdrop of Finland in 1930, where far-right movements are gaining traction during the aftermath of the civil war. Lieutenant Colonel Eero Kuussaari (Jussi Vatanen) is under the command of the arrogant and reckless General Kurt Matti Wallenius (Aku Sipola), who doesn’t see Kuussaari’s worth and refuses to give him the promotion that he and his wife (Elsa Saiso) have been expecting (despite handing one to everyone else).
After a drunken hunting trip with Wallenius, Kussaari wakes up far from Helsinki with no memory of how he got there. When he returns, he shockingly learns that he ordered the kidnapping of former president Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg (Pertti Sveholm), who is outspoken against the far-right movement.
A group of eager but incompetent young men carry out the kidnapping, believing they are sparking a revolution. However, things go astray when Ståhlberg’s wife Ester (Riitta Havukainen) refuses to leave his side, forcing her way into their car. From there, the plan falls apart very quickly, and Kuussaari must find a way to regain control from afar and clean up the mess he has made.
Its bizarre, but true, premise is one of the main pleasures of The Kidnapping of a President. There are two main subplots that run alongside each other, one following Kuussaari and his allies in Helsinki, and the other the kidnapping itself; the latter is far more entertaining, as it quickly becomes evident that these kidnappers are totally out of their depth, and are able to be manipulated by the president and his wife. It is fun to watch Ståhlberg and Esther nonchalantly accept their fate and almost go with the flow of their frightening predicament.
