Rockabye (1986 film)

Rockabye is a 1986 made-for-TV crime drama film, directed by Richard Michaels and starring Valerie Bertinelli, Rachel Ticotin, Jason Alexander, and Jimmy Smits.

Stranded in New York City due to missing a bus caused by a delay of a plane, recently divorced mother Susannah Bartok (Valerie Bertinelli) is attacked and maced outside Macy's in Manhattan, and her 2-year-old son gets kidnapped. After she unsuccessfully pleads to the police, who feel indifferent about the case, newspaper reporter Victoria Garcia (Rachel Ticotin) helps the young mother in finding her son.

Susannah, desperate to find her son, initially rejects Victoria's help because she is realistic about the possible fate of her boy, though convinced that the police are not doing their job quickly enough, she allows Victoria's help. Victoria redirects Susannah to a psychic called Christopher Zellner (Roderick Cook), who believes that her son Sonny is dead, but talks about `a dark place' and `box'. Susannah refuses to believe him, and continues her intense and exhausting search. After putting a photo of her son in the newspaper, several 'witnesses' report to the police, but they are all frauds, annoying Lt. Ernest Foy (Jason Alexander).

During their search, they discover an underground black market ring, selling young children. At the very last minute, she discovers their operation inside a box company warehouse. She and Victoria tiptoe in to see what they find - takes a gun off of a passed out guy downstairs and makes her way upstairs. The ringleader Enrique and the woman who kidnapped Sonny are there. Enrique and another man wrestle with her until she screams and Susannah comes running. After brandishing the gun, the men throw Victoria to her death down an elevator shaft. He tells her that she's too late, that the boy has already been sold and is on his way to Madrid, flying out in an hour. He throws the laundry at her and tries to wrestle the gun out of her hands. It goes off, fatally wounding him. She leaves him there and goes outside to a phone booth. The kidnappers then escape to the airport with Sonny.

She goes outside and after unsuccessfully trying to raise Lt. Foy or Lt. Cooper, and unsuccessfully trying to raise security personnel at the airline, she stops a cab out front and makes the harrowing and sometime high speed journey to JFK. Once inside, she brandishes the gun again, after which the airline manager pretends to call in and stop the flight. They do however allow her clear space to get to the gate where the plane is taking off, but of course she has to relinquish the gun to pass through security. Once devoid of the weapon, police place her in a hold where she becomes even more hysterical after seeing the woman who kidnapped the baby in the first place.

She pretends to be a psychiatrist, claiming Susannah is her patient and needs to be brought back to the hospital. Seeing a copy of the newspaper, she snatches it up and shows it to the men holding her insisting that the story is true. The kidnapper continues her ruse that she's a psychiatrist, but eventually the manager lets her through and sends the police to hold the kidnapper instead.

Moments later Susannah and Sonny are reunited and the other woman holding him is also arrested and we freeze frame over the end credits.

• Valerie Bertinelli as Susannah Bartok
• Rachel Ticotin as Victoria Garcia
• Jason Alexander as Lt. Ernest Foy
• Ray Baker as Donald F. Donald
• Roderick Cook as Christopher Zellner
• Jonathan Raskin as Sonny

• Rockabye at IMDb
• Rockabye at AllMovie
• Rockabye at the TCM Movie Database

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