ABDUCTION Review; Limp Star Vehicle for Taylor Lautner

rating:2

It goes without saying that John Singleton is one of the most inconsistent directors working today; beginning his career on the impossible high of Boyz N The Hood, he has consistently struggled to maintain a level of quality anywhere approaching his acclaimed debut, tending towards more studio-friendly blockbuster fare as of late, helming 2 Fast 2 Furious, and now, the abhorrent Taylor Lautner vehicle Abduction. Depressingly, there's little indication here of the ingenuity or hunger which characterised Singleton's Oscar-nominated work; Abduction is a rote thriller tracing along the prescribed lines while operating with the single-minded intention of elevating its star, Twilight's Lautner, above and beyond the trappings of tween-targeted fantasy fare. That it fails, then, is precisely because it still aims to appeal to those very people who lined up and saw Eclipse four times, and with its limp, bloodless action, the film cannot even muster the slightest visceral hint, as is somewhat less than can be said for the popular vamp series. Lautner plays aloof teenager Nathan Harper, whose life begins to unravel once he notices a picture of his younger self posted on a missing person's website, and comes to believe that his parents, Kevin (Jason Isaacs) and Mara (Maria Bello), are not who they say they are. Soon enough, he has the CIA on his back, by way of agent Frank Burton (Alfred Molina), while his psychiatrist, Geraldine Bennett (Sigourney Weaver) seems to know more about the situation than seems possible, and Nathan's childhood crush, Karen (Lily Collins), is inexorably pulled into the mess. Compounding the disappointment of a talented director taking an easy payday is the similar practises employed by the cast here; skilled actors such as Weaver and Molina certainly don't need something like this on their CV, and while they try their respective bests to play their parts as daft pulp, there's no escaping the dire script, which creates of their roles embarrassing career blemishes rather than anything approaching a remote idea of fun. Still, their moments are at least comparably tolerable when faced with the wooden stylings of lead Lautner, who has yet to demonstrate the makings of a great thesp, and does little to change that opinion here; line readings are forced and awkward, and when faced with anything approaching emotion, he positively turns to stone. Even excusing the dreadfully misplaced cast, a terrible script is a terrible script; beginning as a mediocre if disposably watchable thriller about a boy having his world turned upside down, the film transforms by the half-hour mark into one of ridiculous silly political intrigue. This tonal shift begins with Maria Bello's character defending her son in a laughable assault against two men double her size, moments before most of the good actors are quickly disposed of, leaving Lautner and Collins to spend the rest of the pic fleeing from Michael Nyqvist's punishingly boring, mostly mute antagonist. Action scenes, meanwhile, are infrequent and stilted, lacking the punchiness of Singleton's earlier work or even, dare I say, the frenetic vehicular mayhem of his work in the Fast and the Furious franchise. Bullets fly, people die, but there's barely any hint of blood, causing the whole thing to feel like a Saturday morning cartoon - yet not in the fun, Hitchcockian way - made worse by the fact that it takes itself so super-seriously. Twi-hards know what they like and inevitably will leave the cinema satisfied enough, but for anyone not tied to the film through doting brand loyalty, Abduction is a stagnant thriller which fails to get the blood pumping one bit. Yet another embarrassing squandering of John Singleton's talent, and proof that Taylor Lautner isn't ready to carry a film on his broad shoulders.