'Abduction' Review From 'FilmJournal'

From source: FilmJournal
High-schooler Nathan Harper (Taylor Lautner) is not having an easy time of it. First he suffers from recurring nightmares involving a strange dying woman, then he discovers he may not be the actual child of his parents and the truth of his real identity makes him the target of both a team of trained assassins as well as federal operatives, all of whom seem to have highly questionable motives. He is forced to go on the run, accompanied by his neighbor and long-time love, Karen (Lily Collins), evading death as well as trying to hunt down the identity of his real father.

The first question that crossed my mind—as well as surely others’—at the press screening at which we were all obliged to fill out a form embargoing all Abduction reviews until the day of its release was: “Are they serious, or is this film just one big put-on, some kind of crazy failed inside joke?” The risibility factor is the highest since Cindy Crawford attempted to play a similarly embattled lawyer fleeing for her life in the unforgettable Fair Game. The unintentional laughs start early, largely due to Lautner’s acting, the synthetic cheesiness of which makes him a fair bet to be the new Josh Hartnett. He plays troubled kid here with a panoply of pouting, teariness and clenched-jawed determination which weirdly recall Shirley Temple at her bravest. As a result of the Twilight series, he is, of course, a pre-teen heartthrob, and the filmmakers don’t waste any time getting him shirtless in an early scene, and later exchanging lengthy, hilariously sexless lip-locks with the very whiney Collins which should induce many a mall squeal.

Shawn Christensen’s script is a real booby-prize winner, filled with improbabilities and lines ridiculous enough to challenge any actor’s keeping a straight face. John Singleton’s direction only emphasizes the awfulness, which has, for example, Sigourney Weaver (who must be desperate for work) as a CIA agent who is also a psychiatrist (!), who unbelievably aids Nathan’s escape at one point by wielding a huge bunch of toy balloons and, at the end, when he, poor orphaned soul, decides to make her his new Mommy, says, “Okey-dokey.”

Weaver’s is but one in a gallery of groan-inducing performances which also include Alfred Molina (with a hideously inky dye job) as a CIA honcho; Michael Nyqvist as a very stereotypical psychotic Russian (or is he Serbian?) meanie of a villain possessed of that terrible complexion which always marks a baddie in films of this ilk; Jason Isaacs as Nathan’s über-macho foster father; and Maria Bello as his wife, who has a sensational kung-fu moment defending herself before biting the dust, but not before uttering words that will become our hero’s mantra: “Trust has to be earned.”

One line in the movie—“There’s a bomb in the oven!”—may attain some kind of immortality for utter badness, and the whole thing climaxes at a Pittsburgh Pirates game which merely ups the comedic factor (and seems to be attended by exactly one person of color). But for sheer guffaw-out-loud pricelessness, nothing can match Nyqvist’s threat to Nathan: “I will kill all your friends on Facebook!” (If that doesn’t deserve an earnest cheer, nothing does.)