Kidnapped (1995)

Kidnapped ("A timeless tale of honor, bravery and adventure") is a 1995 TV adventure film directed by Ivan Passer and starring Armand Assante as Highlander Alan Breck and Brian McCardie as Lowlander David Balfour. Among the supporting actors are Michael Kitchen and Brian Blessed. The film was based on the book titled Kidnapped by author Robert Louis Stevenson. Christopher Reeve had originally been cast as Breck prior to his spinal cord injury in a horse race which left him a quadriplegic on May 27, 1995.

The adaptation starts by describing a divided Scotland which is populated by Highlanders and Lowlanders who are loyal to different kings. Allan Breck Stuart is characterised as a leading figure of Jacobitism who tried "to keep the flame alive". It ends when Alan Breck Stuart leaves Scotland forever "to have a distinguished career in the French Army", while David Balfour stays and marries a lady from the Highlands. Another voice-over tells they had sons who "were neither Highlanders nor Lowlanders. They were Scots."

The film was shot on location in Ireland.

Synopsis

Allan Breck Stewart (Armand Assante) returns to his home village, which is already menaced by the highland clearances. His foster father James Stewart of the Glen (Brian McGrath) issues the taxpayers' money for the exiled House of Stuart to him and beseeches him to meet King George's factor, the "Red Fox" Colin Roy Campbell of Glenure (Brendan Gleeson). Allan Stewart only grudgingly complies, because he regards the “Red Fox” as a traitor, for at the Battle of Culloden he had to fight against Loudon's Highlanders, a regiment of Highlanders led by Campbells.

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