Movie of this week: Abduction
Abduction.
2011 action thriller type film, staring Taylor Lautner (who I like to refer to as the fluffy Werewolf from Twilight)
An interesting move that at time seems to be at war with itself. On one hand it wants to be a gritty realistic action spy thriller type thing but it keeps lapsing into mild teenage flick moments which I am not sure detract from the film or just roll with it.
The story is quite simple. Nathan (Lautner) is your typical Hollywood movie teen (you know moody but pretty looking) living the typical Hollywood life (parents single boy in house doing okay sort of okay at school.. kinda 90210 style) gets into trouble for breaking curfew(he was dead drunk at a friends wild party) and so his dad(Jason Isaacs) proceeds to have a massive rough and tumble with him in the garden.. Cue jump to school and all the usual angst and chaos of an American movie school. During which an accommodating school teacher teaching “sociology” sets the students homework to do. Helpfully Nathan is teamed up with his long time friend Karen(Lilly Collins) (also known as the girl he dare not speak too who and so is dating some jock in school in retaliation).. then there is a skip to some wrestling and a brief scene with Nathan at his Psychiatrist (Sigourney Weaver) describing his dreams ..
So, yeah having crammed all that in, plus the fact that his best friend also likes to forge ID’s for people, the two young people get together in Nathans room and… …actually do some school work, in the process of which they discover a photograph of Nathan as a child… Nathan does a bit of looking around in the garage and finds the exact t-shirt his younger self is wearing in the picture and proceeds to ring the helpline number on the website. Cue cut to strange room and a bald “eastern European type” who answers the phone and engages his L33t Haxor software which activates the camera on the laptop computers allowing him to photograph the unwitting Nathan and listen into the random conversation. Cue a phone call to another even more mysterious but dangerous looking Eastern European.. who you know from the camera angle and musical cue is not likely to be a nice man. He calls up his goon mates and they all head for a plane to the US.
Meanwhile back in Nathanville errr. Pensylvannia Natahn confronts his “mother” with the news that he knows she not his mother… While his “father” is in the garage/workshed grinding something with a power tool… Nathans “mother” folds like a deflating balloon and says she and his “father” will tell him all about it.. but just before she is able too the doorbell rings and two men claiming to be police arrive. Cue massive and epic fight between “mom” and two goons. Which unfortunately she is doomed to eventually loose. Not before traumatically being gunned down in front of Nathan while telling him to Run!!. He hesitates and his “father” arrives to meet a very similar fate.. traumatised you Nathan runs like he was chased by sharky sharky…. Until he remembers that Karen is coming over….
Karen meanwhile wanders onto the property and takes cover while the hit men and parents are duelling… unfortunately it is her lot to be captured by burly mook and used as bait for young Nathan.. Burly mook radically underestimates the Young bucks propensity for starting a fight and so is surprised when he launches himself at the guy and proceeds to pound him into the linoleum. Which is not bad given the whole situation… which is fine until the guy lets slip that there is a bomb in the oven…….
The house explodes everyone is in a bit of shock and the two youngsters end up at the nearby hospital. Where Nathan makes a phone call to the police to report the murder of his parents.. and where various people (CIA is implied heavily) and the eastern European mooks are listening in… It must be quite awesome to be able to hack EVERYWHERE and have the processing power to do all that sort of crap… anyway yes.. the dulcet tone of Alfred Molina appear on Nathans Phone call and instruct him that further friendly operatives are on their way to pick him up, helpfully mentioning the name of the hospital and its location quite loudly as they converse. Cue the appearance of Nathans Psychiatrist.. who it turns out is also an agent, assigned along with Nathan “mother” and “father” to protect him and bring him up in a “safe” location… she gives him an address and tells him if they get split up to go there. Carefully leaving the hospital under the cover of balloons(to block the nifty facial recognition computers hacked into the hospital security cameras…. (and who says the UK is the highest surveilled country in the world). During the way she informs Nathan that he is in fact not the mild mannered average teenager from Pennsylvania but the son of an extremely awesome Spy/assassin type guy Martin Price who is the most infamous and effective man in the business (so much so everyone in that circle knows his name) Nathan was taken into care when an attack on their home left his mother dead and Martin in a situation of near mental breakdown. Martin would only return to his duties if he knew that his son was safe. Mr Price had taken a list with names on it and a gentleman named Koslow (Michael Nyquist) wants it back.. yada yada yada…cue car chase, cue Nathan and girlfriend bailing out and heading to the address they are given (with the car Ms Weaver is driving conveniently exploding into flames a short while later). Upon finding the address they discover that it is Price’s house… with all his stuff in it, including a mobilephone (how handy) taking only what they need to survive the two grab a few bits n pieces and jump onto a train for somewhere (but this point I have to say I had lost complete track of where they were going and why, only that I was completely aware we were gearing up for another fight on a train sequence)…
Anyway.. yes in the end it turns out that everyone was in on it somewhere, Nathan is not only able to cope with the fact that he is absolutely not who he thought he was that his parents and family home have been completely destroyed, his dad is an assassin extraordinaire and everyone appears to be out to get him… he seems to cope really well with this and pretty well does what “alex ryder would do”. Which is to completely outplay a seasoned professional at his own game!!!!...
I know.. my playback of the story just lacks conviction.. but seriously… this movie lacks any and all conviction in its plot and excecution. I have no doubts in my mind that Taylor Lautner will do well in up and coming action films he has the physicality and stature of a gentleman who can do these sorts of movies well. My problem with this film is that the director seemed to spend so much of his time swinging wildly between Taylor Lautner.. action man and Taylor Lautner chick flick guy. As the storytelling weaves drunkenly between out and out action sequences which can be quite cruel and punishing to cute and fluffy scenes of embarrassed highschooler trying to talk to his actual one and only love who he stopped talking to back in the 8th grade because he was shy…..
Which is so incredibly strange… because John Singleton is the director of the likes of 2Fast 2Furious, Shaft and Boyz n the Hood.
Practically every trope you can think of is wheeled out in this story line.. you have this young man, who’s parents turn out to not be his parent’s, He’s being trained to “look after himself in a fight” should he need to, He has nightmares about his past, you can probably do what I did through out this movie which is just pull up the probably tropes as they unravel.. (although the bomb in the oven was mildly laugh out loud funny - but only in that “they did what!” moment of realisation). There are also a lot of mildly irritating moment of insanity in this movie. Where the story is so incredibly sloppy I had to stop myself from Yelling at the tv.
The movie just veers wildly between one stupid moment to the next.. one moment everyone is smart, the next everyone is stupid.. and one moment the bad guys can L33t hack their way into anything the next they can’t be bothered and just bungle into the situation with their eyes closed and their brains on neutral. In the mean time you have Mr Lautner staggering around switching madly between being this shy fluffy high school kid to Mr “I kick you in the face”… Everythgin is just plain stupid… and makes you ask WHY!..
Why is it that Mr Kozlow, the gentleman of great experience and skill in “the game” who desperately needs this young man as a lever against his father would send a few goons to the guys house as a vanguard, rather than waiting till his entire team to arrive at the site, set up into position and swarm the as all good black ops wetworks teams are able to do. Catching the parents and the young target by surprise… seriously… steath… you know.. sneaking up on people and all that.. they have a garden surrounded by trees and bushes… its dark.. you know.
Why, if this boy is so important, does the vanguard try the “We just walk in and the try to kill everyone” routine…. Really.. they couldn’t just drop knock out gas through the front letterbox or something… and grab the kid… or better still how about the old.. follow him to school and grab him on the way as he is unsuspecting of any impending attack…. You know, drive up and drag him into a van, white hanky on the face etc..etc.. rather than getting him at home.. where he is likely to be monitored etc.
Why is it that everyone and their dog appear to be able to monitor telephones from the “bad” guys to the “good” guys…. Without anyone knowing the other is on the line….. Please!.... why the hell were the “company” computer guys not hunting the “bad-guys” computer guys! This is the 21st century…
And also, talking of computers.. it is inconceivable to me that this US government “company” of covert peoples who have facial recognition software, who have the ability to get into all ALZ THE CAMERAZ… cannot conceive of running said software on the open internets for sites bearing young Nathan’s visage and either putting these out of action or searching back for the source of the sites…. ESPECIALLY when they directly announce that THEY KNOW THESE ARE HONEY TRAPS TO FIND THE KID!!!!! The guy actually says this… and they do nothing!.
Why is it that “the company” are totally unaware that their safe house had been targeted and exploded, where are the panic buttons?...the top secret cameras etc.. why is it that they allow their agents to be dead and their asset floating in the wind.
Why is it that a gang which prove themselves to be versatile and effective (taking out the “company” operatives without any problems to get the boy in a Diner) are so stupid as to just give the boy all the chance in the world to cause problems. Going for him 1-on-1, rather than just shooting him in the foot or the arm. They only need him to be breathing and mostly alive.. infact they could just shoot him with a tranq while he not paying attention.. drop him, grab him and contain him.. they don’t need to fight him and let him get away..
If they are so on the ball, how come nobody from either side thinks to check Price’s house?
It goes on and on.
SO yeah.. its an okay movie of sorts, but be warned the story is stupid and just barrels from one trope to another without any real direction. The Director has random breaking into chick flick moments.. and the final part of the film is so corny you could make tortillas out of it.
But an okay movie to watch for free if you are bored.
2011 action thriller type film, staring Taylor Lautner (who I like to refer to as the fluffy Werewolf from Twilight)
An interesting move that at time seems to be at war with itself. On one hand it wants to be a gritty realistic action spy thriller type thing but it keeps lapsing into mild teenage flick moments which I am not sure detract from the film or just roll with it.
The story is quite simple. Nathan (Lautner) is your typical Hollywood movie teen (you know moody but pretty looking) living the typical Hollywood life (parents single boy in house doing okay sort of okay at school.. kinda 90210 style) gets into trouble for breaking curfew(he was dead drunk at a friends wild party) and so his dad(Jason Isaacs) proceeds to have a massive rough and tumble with him in the garden.. Cue jump to school and all the usual angst and chaos of an American movie school. During which an accommodating school teacher teaching “sociology” sets the students homework to do. Helpfully Nathan is teamed up with his long time friend Karen(Lilly Collins) (also known as the girl he dare not speak too who and so is dating some jock in school in retaliation).. then there is a skip to some wrestling and a brief scene with Nathan at his Psychiatrist (Sigourney Weaver) describing his dreams ..
So, yeah having crammed all that in, plus the fact that his best friend also likes to forge ID’s for people, the two young people get together in Nathans room and… …actually do some school work, in the process of which they discover a photograph of Nathan as a child… Nathan does a bit of looking around in the garage and finds the exact t-shirt his younger self is wearing in the picture and proceeds to ring the helpline number on the website. Cue cut to strange room and a bald “eastern European type” who answers the phone and engages his L33t Haxor software which activates the camera on the laptop computers allowing him to photograph the unwitting Nathan and listen into the random conversation. Cue a phone call to another even more mysterious but dangerous looking Eastern European.. who you know from the camera angle and musical cue is not likely to be a nice man. He calls up his goon mates and they all head for a plane to the US.
Meanwhile back in Nathanville errr. Pensylvannia Natahn confronts his “mother” with the news that he knows she not his mother… While his “father” is in the garage/workshed grinding something with a power tool… Nathans “mother” folds like a deflating balloon and says she and his “father” will tell him all about it.. but just before she is able too the doorbell rings and two men claiming to be police arrive. Cue massive and epic fight between “mom” and two goons. Which unfortunately she is doomed to eventually loose. Not before traumatically being gunned down in front of Nathan while telling him to Run!!. He hesitates and his “father” arrives to meet a very similar fate.. traumatised you Nathan runs like he was chased by sharky sharky…. Until he remembers that Karen is coming over….
Karen meanwhile wanders onto the property and takes cover while the hit men and parents are duelling… unfortunately it is her lot to be captured by burly mook and used as bait for young Nathan.. Burly mook radically underestimates the Young bucks propensity for starting a fight and so is surprised when he launches himself at the guy and proceeds to pound him into the linoleum. Which is not bad given the whole situation… which is fine until the guy lets slip that there is a bomb in the oven…….
The house explodes everyone is in a bit of shock and the two youngsters end up at the nearby hospital. Where Nathan makes a phone call to the police to report the murder of his parents.. and where various people (CIA is implied heavily) and the eastern European mooks are listening in… It must be quite awesome to be able to hack EVERYWHERE and have the processing power to do all that sort of crap… anyway yes.. the dulcet tone of Alfred Molina appear on Nathans Phone call and instruct him that further friendly operatives are on their way to pick him up, helpfully mentioning the name of the hospital and its location quite loudly as they converse. Cue the appearance of Nathans Psychiatrist.. who it turns out is also an agent, assigned along with Nathan “mother” and “father” to protect him and bring him up in a “safe” location… she gives him an address and tells him if they get split up to go there. Carefully leaving the hospital under the cover of balloons(to block the nifty facial recognition computers hacked into the hospital security cameras…. (and who says the UK is the highest surveilled country in the world). During the way she informs Nathan that he is in fact not the mild mannered average teenager from Pennsylvania but the son of an extremely awesome Spy/assassin type guy Martin Price who is the most infamous and effective man in the business (so much so everyone in that circle knows his name) Nathan was taken into care when an attack on their home left his mother dead and Martin in a situation of near mental breakdown. Martin would only return to his duties if he knew that his son was safe. Mr Price had taken a list with names on it and a gentleman named Koslow (Michael Nyquist) wants it back.. yada yada yada…cue car chase, cue Nathan and girlfriend bailing out and heading to the address they are given (with the car Ms Weaver is driving conveniently exploding into flames a short while later). Upon finding the address they discover that it is Price’s house… with all his stuff in it, including a mobilephone (how handy) taking only what they need to survive the two grab a few bits n pieces and jump onto a train for somewhere (but this point I have to say I had lost complete track of where they were going and why, only that I was completely aware we were gearing up for another fight on a train sequence)…
Anyway.. yes in the end it turns out that everyone was in on it somewhere, Nathan is not only able to cope with the fact that he is absolutely not who he thought he was that his parents and family home have been completely destroyed, his dad is an assassin extraordinaire and everyone appears to be out to get him… he seems to cope really well with this and pretty well does what “alex ryder would do”. Which is to completely outplay a seasoned professional at his own game!!!!...
I know.. my playback of the story just lacks conviction.. but seriously… this movie lacks any and all conviction in its plot and excecution. I have no doubts in my mind that Taylor Lautner will do well in up and coming action films he has the physicality and stature of a gentleman who can do these sorts of movies well. My problem with this film is that the director seemed to spend so much of his time swinging wildly between Taylor Lautner.. action man and Taylor Lautner chick flick guy. As the storytelling weaves drunkenly between out and out action sequences which can be quite cruel and punishing to cute and fluffy scenes of embarrassed highschooler trying to talk to his actual one and only love who he stopped talking to back in the 8th grade because he was shy…..
Which is so incredibly strange… because John Singleton is the director of the likes of 2Fast 2Furious, Shaft and Boyz n the Hood.
Practically every trope you can think of is wheeled out in this story line.. you have this young man, who’s parents turn out to not be his parent’s, He’s being trained to “look after himself in a fight” should he need to, He has nightmares about his past, you can probably do what I did through out this movie which is just pull up the probably tropes as they unravel.. (although the bomb in the oven was mildly laugh out loud funny - but only in that “they did what!” moment of realisation). There are also a lot of mildly irritating moment of insanity in this movie. Where the story is so incredibly sloppy I had to stop myself from Yelling at the tv.
The movie just veers wildly between one stupid moment to the next.. one moment everyone is smart, the next everyone is stupid.. and one moment the bad guys can L33t hack their way into anything the next they can’t be bothered and just bungle into the situation with their eyes closed and their brains on neutral. In the mean time you have Mr Lautner staggering around switching madly between being this shy fluffy high school kid to Mr “I kick you in the face”… Everythgin is just plain stupid… and makes you ask WHY!..
Why is it that Mr Kozlow, the gentleman of great experience and skill in “the game” who desperately needs this young man as a lever against his father would send a few goons to the guys house as a vanguard, rather than waiting till his entire team to arrive at the site, set up into position and swarm the as all good black ops wetworks teams are able to do. Catching the parents and the young target by surprise… seriously… steath… you know.. sneaking up on people and all that.. they have a garden surrounded by trees and bushes… its dark.. you know.
Why, if this boy is so important, does the vanguard try the “We just walk in and the try to kill everyone” routine…. Really.. they couldn’t just drop knock out gas through the front letterbox or something… and grab the kid… or better still how about the old.. follow him to school and grab him on the way as he is unsuspecting of any impending attack…. You know, drive up and drag him into a van, white hanky on the face etc..etc.. rather than getting him at home.. where he is likely to be monitored etc.
Why is it that everyone and their dog appear to be able to monitor telephones from the “bad” guys to the “good” guys…. Without anyone knowing the other is on the line….. Please!.... why the hell were the “company” computer guys not hunting the “bad-guys” computer guys! This is the 21st century…
And also, talking of computers.. it is inconceivable to me that this US government “company” of covert peoples who have facial recognition software, who have the ability to get into all ALZ THE CAMERAZ… cannot conceive of running said software on the open internets for sites bearing young Nathan’s visage and either putting these out of action or searching back for the source of the sites…. ESPECIALLY when they directly announce that THEY KNOW THESE ARE HONEY TRAPS TO FIND THE KID!!!!! The guy actually says this… and they do nothing!.
Why is it that “the company” are totally unaware that their safe house had been targeted and exploded, where are the panic buttons?...the top secret cameras etc.. why is it that they allow their agents to be dead and their asset floating in the wind.
Why is it that a gang which prove themselves to be versatile and effective (taking out the “company” operatives without any problems to get the boy in a Diner) are so stupid as to just give the boy all the chance in the world to cause problems. Going for him 1-on-1, rather than just shooting him in the foot or the arm. They only need him to be breathing and mostly alive.. infact they could just shoot him with a tranq while he not paying attention.. drop him, grab him and contain him.. they don’t need to fight him and let him get away..
If they are so on the ball, how come nobody from either side thinks to check Price’s house?
It goes on and on.
SO yeah.. its an okay movie of sorts, but be warned the story is stupid and just barrels from one trope to another without any real direction. The Director has random breaking into chick flick moments.. and the final part of the film is so corny you could make tortillas out of it.
But an okay movie to watch for free if you are bored.