Abduction

October 2, 2011

After watching this juvenile action flick, you will find that "Abduction" is deceptively titled because at the end of everything, absolutely no one gets or got abducted! Haha! Anyway, if you imagine this film to be the junior version of the Bourne films, you may get what you want. But Taylor Lautner is no Matt Damon. In "Abduction," Lautner plays Nathan, a conflicted teenager who gets his world turned upside down when he sees his 3-year old face on a website for missing children.

All you see in the poster is Taylor Lautner name and picture. But as the credits were being shown, you will be surprised with all the big names who are involved with this seemingly B-movie. The director is John Singleton, who launched his career with an Oscar nomination for Best Director with "Boyz N the Hood." You do not really hear much about him lately though. In the supporting cast are notable actors like Alfred Molina, Jason Isaacs and Sigourney Weaver (who plays Nathan's shrink!). 

The story is sort of interesting and twisty. There is a bit of the recent film "Hanna" in it somewhere, with a teenage protagonist, as well as the CIA and family issues. However, the execution is too tacky and florid. Too many convenient coincidences. The acting is mediocre, just as you would expect for a B-action movie. At this point, if ever Taylor makes more movies like this after the "Twilight" franchise, he would probably be only at the level of Jean Claude Van Damme or Jason Statham. It is now up to Lautner and his next movies to prove our prediction wrong.