Ransom (1996) | "Give Me Back My Son"

Season 21, Episode 7

We're taking a ride into the high-stakes world of kidnappings, moral dilemmas, and early internet wire transfers with Ron Howard’s Ransom (1996) — a film that asks one big question:

What would you do if someone took your child?

Mel Gibson stars as Tom Mullen, a wealthy airline owner whose son is kidnapped, triggering a manhunt and a media circus. But instead of quietly paying the ransom, Mullen pulls a gutsy move — he flips the script, goes on TV, and offers the ransom money as a bounty on the kidnappers’ heads. Bold? Absolutely. Heroic? Maybe. Smart? Well… that’s where the debate starts.

We both agree: Ransom knows how to build tension. The pacing is tight, the performances are sharp — particularly from Gary Sinise, who brings real menace to the role of crooked cop turned kidnapper — and Howard’s direction keeps everything grounded, even when the plot throws a few questionable curveballs.

Where we split is on Gibson’s Mullen. Is he a desperate father pushed to the edge, or a reckless egomaniac escalating a situation he clearly doesn’t control? We dig into the moral ambiguity and the psychological toll of the entire situation.

At the end of the day, Ransom is peak '90s thriller: morally gray, tightly wound, and just a bit over the top. And we’re here for every tense, sweaty, ethically messy second of it.

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