Abduction (I) (2011)

A thriller centered on a young man who sets out to uncover the truth about his life after finding his baby photo on a missing persons website.

Director:

John Singleton

Writer:

Shawn Christensen

Stars:

Alfred Molina, Maria Bello, Lily Collins

2 wins & 3 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Alfred Molina	...	Burton
Maria Bello	...	Mara
Jason Isaacs	...	Kevin Harper
Denzel Whitaker	...	Gilly
Michael Nyqvist	...	Nikola Kozlow
Jake Andolina	...	CIA Man
Oriah Acima Andrews	...	Riah
Ken Arnold	...	Thermal
Steve Blass	...	Game Announcer
Lily Collins	...	Karen
Derek Burnell	...	Hot Dog Vendor
Benjamin J. Cain Jr.	...	Driver (as Ben Cain)
Holly Scott Cavanaugh	...	Mrs. Murphy
Radick Cembrzynski	...	Kozlow's Tech
Richard Cetrone	...	Gregory

Storyline

Nathan, a teen, along with his friend, Karen, finds a website that has photos of children who are missing or believed to have been abducted. They decide to age one of the photos and discover that it is of Nathan as a child. He contacts the person who placed the photo to find out what's going on. The person on the other end only wants to know info about Nathan, so Nathan hangs up. That person then contacts someone in Europe and shows him a photo of the one who called. He then heads for the U.S. Nathan then wonders if it's true he was abducted. He tells his "mom" who then tells him she and his "father" will tell him. But before they can, two men claiming to be cops show up wanting to talk to Nathan, and when he isn't found they pull guns and demand Nathan be given to them. His parents fight them but are killed. Nathan runs but remembers that he asked Karen to come over and one of them tries to get rough with her but Nathan saves her and they escape just as the house blows up. They go to...

---

Plot Keywords:

cia | website | hospital | teenager | abduction | 

---

Taglines:

They Stole His Life. He's Taking It Back.

---

Genres:

Action | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

---

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense violence and action, brief language, some sexual content and teen partying

Details

Official Sites:

Lionsgate [us] Official Facebook [fr]

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

23 September 2011 (USA)

Also Known As:

Abduction - Riprenditi la tua vita

Filming Locations:

Brownsville, Pennsylvania, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$35,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$10,925,253 (USA) (23 September 2011)

Gross:

$28,064,226 (USA) (9 December 2011)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Lionsgate, Gotham Group, Vertigo Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

106 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital DTS SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Nathan wears a Pittsburgh Pirates shirt, #21 with the name Clemente on the back. Roberto Clemente was a star player for the Pirates. He was the first Latin American to have 3000 hits, and the first Latin American elected into the Hall of Fame, posthumously. He won 12 golden gloves, 15 All-star selections, lifetime .317 batting average, and played in two winning World Series, being MVP in the '71 series. He died on a flight to Nicaragua on the 31st of December, 1972, flying with emergency relief items to help after the earthquake there. The statue outside PNC park (which was possibly going to be named after Clemente before PNC bought the naming rights) - where Nathan leaves a ticket - is of Roberto Clemente.

---

Goofs

After the house explodes and Nathan is headed to the hospital, he is on the 7th Street Bridge. He would have passed the hospital that is on the North Shore, less than a mile from PNC park, which can be seen in the background of the shot.

---

Quotes

[first lines]
Nathan: [screaming] Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Whoo! Yeah, baby! Yeah, Gilly, get out here!

---

Connections

Referenced in The Tonight Show with Jay Leno: Episode #20.110 (2012)

---

Soundtracks

"Twist"
Written by Nanna Øland Fabricius and Ryan Michael Breen
Performed by Oh Land
Courtesy of Epic Records
By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing

User Reviews

Bland action thriller that tries- but fails- to be the younger Bourne, no thanks to Taylor Lautner's hammy acting

Five minutes. That was how long it took before Taylor Lautner took his shirt off in his purportedly gritty action thriller 'Abduction'- and depending on how you took to that fact, you may find yourself enjoying every minute of it or cringing in disbelief. Right from the start, this Taylor-made vehicle makes no excuses for being a breakout role for the 'Twilight' star- after all, if Team Edward (or Robert Pattinson) can do it, then there's no reason why Team Jacob can't do likewise.

Nonetheless, it seems that Team Jacob should have just stayed in the woods of Forks, Washington, for this insipid Bourne-wannabe does him nor his fans no favours. Rather, (and we may be risking our life and limb by saying this) it only demonstrates his limitations as an actor, especially since he practically recycles the same angsty broody expression throughout the film that he had already put forth umpteen times in the 'Twilight' movies. And no, being a teenager who discovers that the people you call 'mother' and 'father' aren't in fact your real parents isn't much of an excuse too.

That's the predicament Lautner's character Nathan finds himself in one day, after stumbling across a website with photos of missing children and using some software to approximate what one of those kids could look like as a teenager. Though that's the very premise of the movie, the least we expected was for debut feature film screenwriter Shawn Christensen to come up with a better lead in than just some stupid research assignment Nathan and his girl next door Karen (Lily Collins, daughter of singer Phil) was assigned to work together on.

Logic and coherence are however too much evidently to demand, as one would have to suspend both to believe that Nathan is suddenly at the centre of global espionage with both the good guys (led by 'Spiderman 2's' Alfred Molina) and the bad guys (led by Swedish actor Michael Nyqvist from 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo') in pursuit. Apparently, Nathan is the son of a top secret CIA undercover operative whose 'parents' (Jason Isaacs and Maria Bello) are fellow CIA agents sent to protect him while his father is away. As with all chases, the aim is for something that Nathan has in his possession- some encrypted code with the names of dirty CIA agents.

It takes almost half an hour before the action kicks in, the introduction that sets up Nathan's adolescent issues and his secret high-school crush on Karen pure tedium that is definitely not director John Singleton's forte. Thankfully, the pace picks up considerably once Nathan is thrust into that implausible situation, with Singleton clearly at ease setting up the film's various action sequences. One of the first that sees Nathan's 'parents' murdered is shot and edited for maximum thrills, and the climax set in a packed stadium with a live baseball match also packs suspense.

To Lautner's credit, the action also looks good because he performs most, if not all, of the stunts by himself- whether tackling a bigger- sized guy MMA-style or fleeing from the bad guys with parkour. Singleton doesn't go for the shaky-cam technique, allowing his audience to appreciate Lautner's physicality in its full glory. Even so, taking on the lead role requires Lautner to perform some serious acting in order for us to identify with his character's inner distress, but the square- jawed actor with his one-note performance fails to inspire any empathy.

The fault doesn't lie with Lautner entirely- to appeal to the teenage demographic which the producers are relying on to turn up for this movie, they have decided to amp up the obligatory romance between Nathan and Karen, even to the extent of letting the two teenage characters engage in some heavy making-out that stops just before it crosses the PG13 boundary. It is distracting and laughable, although the latter seems to be in line with most of the awful dialogue in the film.

Not even veteran stars like Isaacs, Bello, Molina, Nyqvist and Sigourney Weaver (who plays Nathan's psychologist) can redeem this at-best made- for-TV thriller that tries to be the younger version of the Bourne series. So as much as Team Jacob may wish for Lautner to be their Matt Damon, or even Tom Cruise, it is clear from his debut headlining movie that once the 'Twilight' phenomenon fades, the same can probably be said of Lautner's acting career as well.

• www.moviexclusive.com