Abduction (2011)

Number Rolled: 31

Movie Name/Year: Abduction (2011)

Genre: Thriller

Length: 105 minutes

Rating: PG-13

Director: John Singleton

Writer: Shawn Christensen

Actors: Alfred Molina, Maria Bello, Jason Isaacs, Denzel Whitaker, Michael Nyqvist, Jake Andolina, Ken Arnold, Lily Collins, Taylor Lautner, Antonique Smith, Sigourney Weaver

Nathan is your basic high school student. He’s on the wrestling team, has a horrible issue with talking to his crush and sneaks over to parties with flowing warm beer in big red cups. Pretty much, he’s as cookie cutter as it gets. That is, until he stumbles across a site with his picture on it, a site that shows him on a list of missing children. With his crush, Karen, by his side, Nathan’s world begins to unravel and a much more violent one takes its place.

Critics and fans trashed this movie, and I have to agree with some of their points.

First, the movie did go by a recipe and, although the product of it wasn’t bad, there were a few missing components. Several glaring plot holes are easy to see by the end of the movie and some of the script seemed a little more forced than necessary. Next, even without the holes, the story wasn’t quite as strong as the movies in this genre tend to be. The storyline of a main character either forgetting, or never knowing something, about themselves and going on a mission to find out the answers is a very easy story. It plays on the fears of the audience, based around the obvious and age-old question: Who am I? Because it’s such an easy storyline to utilize, it has to have something special to it or it becomes boring. This movie walked that line; dangerously looking over to the boring side.

What I disagree with the critics on would be the acting. It’s unfortunate that the actors got trashed as much as they did. For Lily Collins, Sigourney Weaver and Alfred Molina, I think their bad press came from the relatively weak script. For Taylor Lautner, though, I think it was something else entirely.

I absolutely abhor the fact that I have to mention this movie; especially since it was mentioned in every single review I found on him for “Abduction.” Every single critic review I read seemed to only judge him based on this movie against the Twilight series. It really is horrible that his work in that movie is going to follow him like skunk stench in the perfume section of Macy’s, because I think Taylor Lautner did amazing with what he had. I also think he should be reviewed for “Abduction” on the work he did for “Abduction”; not the work he did for “Twilight.” Wouldn’t that just make sense?

I didn’t hate the movie, there were a few parts that had me enthralled, but I didn’t love it either. It was closer to mediocre than anything.

Overall Opinion – 3/5

P.S. I kept thinking Lily Collins was Nina Dobrev throughout the entire movie.