Upamanyu Biswas
In ‘Amber Alert,’ an 8-year-old girl named Charlotte Bryce goes missing while playing hide-and-seek at a local park. When the local authorities put out an amber alert on the situation, Jaq and Shane, who are in the middle of a ride-share, realize that they are next to the same car used by the abductor. It triggers a game of cat and mouse between the two civilians and the kidnapper as they attempt to save the girl before something terrible happens to her.
The Kerry Bellessa directorial jumps into a heart-racing premise where the responsibility of saving a young girl’s life takes the central characters on a massive chase. While it primarily functions as a high-octane thriller narrative, a more probing look is taken into how local authorities undertake recovery efforts for kidnapped children, even recruiting the help of citizens in the process. Its dark and disturbing subject matter may be heightened through a dramatic lens, but it appears realistic enough to suggest that it is based on the tragic reality of abductions.
Amber Alert is a Remake of the Director’s Found-Footage Film Rooted in Reality
‘Amber Alert’ is a fictional child abduction story driven by a script penned by director-producer Kerry Bellessa and co-writer Joshua Oram. The former based it on his eponymous 2012 found-footage film, which also dives into the same subject matter albeit through a more unconventional filmmaking approach. The initial inspiration for the story came to Bellessa in January 2010, when he and his wife came across an amber alert sign while driving from Los Angeles to Phoenix. Unsettled by the alert, the filmmaker researched and developed a script about it with Oram, hoping he could film it in a traditional manner with stunning cinematography. When it wasn’t possible, the project was shot in a found-footage style and was bankrolled through his and his wife’s savings, which amounted to $5000 at the time.
After the release of the original, Bellessa wanted to approach the same story except with a more traditional structure. In an interview, he explained, “(We) basically reimagined what we wanted to do with a real budget. Then having the opportunity to do this has been a dream come true. It’s been awesome.” The project also allowed him to expand the creative team working on the project, which was directly in contrast to the small crew of family and friends who worked on the original movie. Narratively, the story also deviates from the original as modern inventions like ride-share apps are incorporated into the main storyline in an intrinsic manner. Portraying such technological shifts helped place the story in a more contemporary environment while still digging into the same fears around child kidnappings.
According to Bellessa, the story’s intrigue lies in the question: what would you do if you were in that position? He said, “That’s kind of the genesis of the film is I had an idea of what I would do, and my wife had a completely different idea of what she would do. Then we put it together, and you have something really fun and exciting.” In a strange way, the ambiguity of wondering about one’s moral convictions and civic duties drives the character of Jaq. Although it is not her responsibility to seek out the abductor, she takes a front-foot approach to the kidnapping and tries her best to help in any way she can. It creates an interesting dialogue between her and Shane about the implications of taking a leap of faith, particularly when the life of a child is involved.
The Efforts of the Amber Alert System and its Impact on Recovery Efforts
Although ‘Amber Alert’ may be a dramatized story about child abduction, the movie touches upon a real initiative that helps save the lives of many abducted children – the Amber Alert program. In fact, the film’s ending crawl pays homage to its creation following the 1996 kidnapping and murder of Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old in Arlington, Texas. While her death remains unsolved, the Amber Alert System was installed to help with community-wide efforts to retrieve and recover a missing child as soon as possible. Whenever a serious case of child abduction comes up, alerts are broadcasted through a variety of outlets that can range from TV and cell phones to any data-enabled device.
As per a December 2023 report, the Amber Alert system has helped recover around 1200 missing kids. That number is said to have increased to 1300 by the film’s final scrawl. In the movie, Jaq and Shane become active contributors to Charlotte Bryce’s recovery because of the amber alert that pops up on their phones. Without the necessary notification, the two main characters would have gone about their affairs not knowing that a real child abductor was passing right by them. It illustrates the importance the system plays in harrowing situations, especially when it comes to the safety of the children and the comfort of the suffering families. Despite its elevated and heightened stakes, ‘Amber Alert’ manages to capture the anxieties of how a missing child’s recovery can take a life of its own.
Read More: Amber Alert (2012): Is the Movie Inspired by a True Story?
