A title like “Abduction” would generally lead a viewer to believe that the film’s premise revolves around the main character being kidnapped. However, this never happened.
With the poor reviews this movie has been receiving, I can’t say that I was expecting much, but it did turn out to be mildly funny in a way it was never meant to be.
Nathan, played by Taylor Lautner, and his next door neighbor Karen, played by Lily Collins, are working on a school project together when they run across a missing persons website with what appears to be a picture of Nathan as a child. Nathan immediately goes into an identity crisis – not knowing if his parents are who they say they are. But before he can get answers, his parents are killed by Russian assassins, and his house blows up.
Karen is a witness to all of this, and Nathan and Karen are thrown together in an adventure to endure miscellaneous international intrigue and all “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” And I do mean outrageous.
The writing of “Abduction” leaves a lot to be desired. Almost no character development or deeper ideals leave the meager script to advance the plot in whatever way it can. Rather large plot holes only leave room for some plot twists that are completely unreasonable and always downright ridiculous.
My personal favorite happens after Nathan’s parents have been killed. The last remaining assassin has just been expertly defeated thanks to Nathan’s martial arts prowess.
The assassin is interrogated for answers by Nathan when the assassin looks up and says, “I’m not dying here. There’s a bomb in the oven.”
Ten seconds later, Nathan has achieved a narrow escape as his former home bursts into fiery wooden splinters – from the oven bomb.
At least it was good for a laugh because it certainly didn’t add to the plot’s believability.
“Abduction” is overtly trying for that “Bourne Identity” feel, but in almost all the key areas it falls flat. The Bourne premise becomes all too clear when Karen finds Nathan’s missing person picture as a child.
Looking at the picture she says, “This one looks like Matt Damon meets – you!”
Unlike Bourne, the central theme of one man becoming the most wanted person in the world overnight fails to work well for this movie because I found it impossible to empathize with either Nathan or Karen’s character. Their actions simply don’t make them heroic or likeable as individuals.