PLOT:
Nathan is a popular boy who loves his parents a whole bunch. One day, he happens to find his picture on a missing person’s website. He calls the police and they try and connect him to the folks that want to get rid of the boy. Soon, he is on the run with his would be girlfriend and it’s all one big wacky adventure.
REVIEW:
Let’s get this out of the way right now, ABDUCTION is bad. Sometimes it is so bad it’s good bad, but mostly it is just plain bad. It is like watching a dull Lifetime movie of the week, but sadly Tori Spelling in MOTHER, MAY I SLEEP WITH DANGER? packed more thrills than this. This teen chase thriller is loaded with unbelievable plot devices, lame dialogue and yes, a leading man who just can’t carry a picture.
The story revolves around a teenager named Nathan (Taylor Lautner). He is a fun loving kid who likes to sit on the front of a truck while his buddy drives real fast. He’s a rebel you see. Although a bland rebel who really doesn’t do much wrong besides get drunk one night at a party (after the aforementioned truck riding incident). So dear old dad (Jason Isaacs) picks up the boy in the morning and the two have a cute little game of beat each other up. You see, mom (Maria Bello) and pops want the boy to be tough… and of course they have their reasons
Let’s start with the script by Shawn Christensen. The whole damn storyline of all the stars falling into place so he can find his stupid picture is ridiculous. This could have been handled much better, but it wasn’t, so what can you do considering the finding his “missing person” photo is ludicrous. And the convenience of having the exact shirt he was wearing so many years ago in the missing persons picture is unbelievable. The ease of finding a ride to another state with Nathan’s girlfriend in tow (Lily Collins) is simply bullshit. Just ask a truck driver because we all know hitchhiking always gets you where you want to go. Here is another good one; you see something horrible happen to someone you love… well you can react the exact same way when someone is embarrassing you in high school. Why? Because you can take off your shirt and reveal your abs and the girls won’t care if you are dull and expressionless.
Now the fault here as previously mentioned is not necessarily all on Taylor Lautner. The script just doesn’t work and even the direction is all over the place. Yet the fact is you put Lautner up next to Maria Bello, Sigourney Weaver, Alfred Molina and Jason Issacs, his inadequacies are amplified. He is not an action star and his performance feels almost amateurish. He also has such a boyish face that it is near impossible to take him seriously in the more dramatic moments, or even the PG-13 love scene. When he and Collins get intimate, the theatre exploded into laughter and I am quite sure that wasn’t the intended reaction.
What about John Singleton? What was it about this film that he was trying to do? It is almost a guarantee that they were hoping for a franchise of some sort. Yet I’m not sure if the TWILIGHT audience would really care for a teenage spy, and judging by the reaction at the screening, they don’t seem to be all that pumped for it. This is a mess of a movie with a not so ready for leading man Lautner and a story and script that is just blatantly obvious. Abduction is just nonsense and more nonsense. There is nobody to root for, just a dumb set of circumstance for Nathan. Yet by some miracle, he always has the upper hand against a bunch of the idiot goons. Really, just don’t bother with Abduction. In fact, almost anything is better than this.