I am generally not as kind of a person as I used to be or even want to be. Those within my circles of friends and family I try to be kind and thoughtful; however, these days strangers are a whole different story. And I have to tell you I hate being that way. Through the years as some of my displays of kindness were met with deceitfulness, those layers of negative experiences started to pull the kindness inside of me down into a setting hardness of mistrust. There were the relationships where kindness was met with covert acts of hurtfulness; helping the high school student who was selling local newspaper subscriptions but my money never made it to the newspaper office and the former co-worker who took my data to pretend it was their own hard work; each thing kept chipping away at me. Look at all the news being reported about internet or phone scams that prey on unsuspecting individuals; it is enough to make one never answer the phone or open a piece of mail again. I know all of these things can lead to a society that is made of closed up and isolated people; it is a scary thought.    KINDNESS was met with a night of terror and horror for Terri, played by Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Person of Interest-TV). All it took was to help a stranded driver who had a car accident and needed to make a phone call. Unbeknownst to Terri the gentleman was escaped convict Colin Evans, played by Idris Elba (Pacific Rim, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom). The strongest element in this crime thriller was Taraji and Idris. The rest of the cast that included Leslie Bibb (Iron Man franchise, Law Abiding Citizen) as Meg and Henry Simmons (World’s Greatest Dad, Madea’s Family Reunion) as Terri’s husband, really took a back seat to Idris and Taraji. With their solid acting the two actors had a believable chemistry that kept me interested in the story. Now about that story; the script was kept at such a poor level that the movie kept brushing into hokeyness. It was astounding how many times Taraji’s character Terri, who was a lawyer, kept making poor choices. Even though the story was predictable and filled with cliches, I still was able to be mildly entertained for a portion of the time. It was a shame this movie was not kind to its actors and it would be unkind of me to tell you to go see it at the movie theaters. There were several scenes that had violence and blood in them.

2 stars