Movies Reviews

Abduction – Movie Review

By Anne Brodie Sep 24, 2011, 23:44 GMT

Taylor Lautner stars as a young man unwittingly thrust into a deadly world of covert espionage in Lionsgate\'s action-thriller, ABDUCTION, directed by John Singleton. For as long as he can remember, Nathan Harper (Taylor Lautner) has had the uneasy feeling that he\'s living someone else\'s life. When he stumbles upon an image of himself as a little boy on a missing persons website, all of Nathan\'s darkest fears come true: he ...more

Poor Taylor Lautner has been well and truly betrayed in his first big film.  It’s not long after he appears onscreen that he is shirtless.  As buff as he made himself to play Jacob in the second Twilight, he’s still a person and an actor, not a commodity as he most definitely is in this under baked tale. 

The love scenes are the slurpiest, messiest, tightest close-ups probably ever seen outside a porn film.  His lips are a big feature of this fetishism, super glossy, bright red and parted.  It is sad to see him caught in this hunk trap.

The story is interesting on paper.  Nathan, a high-schooler, who feels he doesn’t belong in his own life, discovers a picture of himself as a little boy on a missing persons website and sets out to unlock the mystery of his past.  His parents aren’t his parents – they are CIA agents who raised him, played by Maria Bello and Jason Isaacs.

 Within a short period of time, he learns menacing strangers have found his location and are out to hurt him and / or his parents.  They are killed by these men dressed in black and soon the house explodes in a fiery ball – film highlight!

Nathan hightails it out of there with the girl next door and his former g.f. Karen (Lily Collins) He calls the only person he can trust,  his psychiatrist (Sigourney Weaver - see?  Great actors to support Lautner in an obvious lack of confidence in him) who runs him to safety with more men in black hot on their trail.

Thus begins a long and hazardous escape that finds Karen and Nathan on a train, mourning the death of his “parents”,  the discovery of his false life and the danger they’re in  but going ahead anyway with a little bit o’ sex.  Cue slurping and extreme tight close-ups.

Their journey takes them to the apartment of an unknown and unseen man, where there is a bag packed with money, supplies and a phone.  So someone has been anticipating his arrival.  Back on the road they face mortal danger including a deadly meeting at a rural café, an episode in a rushing river, and well.

The screenplay is weak as water, although the concept is interesting.  The direction is as mentioned exploitative and senseless and the performances are mundane.   All of this to supposedly cement Lautner’s status as an action hero and sex symbol.  He’s not ready for this. 

He needs to be a lot more comfortable with the camera than he is and the people around him must have his best interests at heart and stop treating him like a side of beef stuffed with cash.  It’s actually appalling that a 19 year old is bought and sold like this.

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35mm thriller
Written by Shawn Christensen
Directed by John Singleton
Opens: Sept 22
Runtime: 106 minutes
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense violence and action, brief language, some sexual content and teen partying
Country: US
Language: English