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Critics Consensus

A soulless and incompetent action/thriller not even a veteran lead actor could save, let alone Taylor Lautner. Read critic reviews

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Abduction photos.

For many years, Nathan Harper (Taylor Lautner) has had the uneasy feeling that life with his family isn't quite what it seems. His fears come true when he finds a picture of himself as a youngster on a missing-persons website, proof that the people he's called mom and dad his whole life are not his real parents. As he draws close to uncovering his true identity, Nathan becomes the target of assassins, forcing him to flee with his neighbor, Karen (Lily Collins), the only person he can now trust.

Rating: PG-13 (Intense Violence and Action|Brief Language|Some Sexual Content|Teen Partying)

Genre: Action, Mystery & thriller

Original Language: English

Director: John Singleton

Producer: Doug Davison , Ellen Goldsmith-Vein , Lee Stollman , Roy Lee , Dan Lautner , Patrick Crowley

Writer: Shawn Christensen

Release Date (Theaters): Sep 23, 2011 wide

Release Date (Streaming): Dec 14, 2015

Box Office (Gross USA): $28.1M

Runtime: 1h 46m

Distributor: Lionsgate Films

Production Co: Lionsgate Films, Vertigo, Gotham Group

Sound Mix: SDDS, Dolby Digital

Cast & Crew

Taylor Lautner

Lily Collins

Alfred Molina

Jason Isaacs

Maria Bello

Sigourney Weaver

Dr. Bennett

Denzel Whitaker

Michael Nyqvist

Victor Slezak

Roger Guenveur Smith

Allen Williamson

Elisabeth Röhm

Woman, Lorna

John Singleton

Shawn Christensen

Screenwriter

Doug Davison

Ellen Goldsmith-Vein

Lee Stollman

Dan Lautner

Patrick Crowley

Jeremy Bell

Executive Producer

Gabriel Mason

Anthony Katagas

Allison Shearmur

Wolfgang Hammer

Peter Menzies Jr.

Cinematographer

Keith Brian Burns

Production Design

Bruce Cannon

Film Editing

Ruth E. Carter

Costume Design

Joseph Middleton

Ed Shearmur

Original Music

Liba Daniels

Art Director

News & Interviews for Abduction

Critics Consensus: Moneyball is Certified Fresh

Five Favorite Films With Taylor Lautner

Critic Reviews for Abduction

Audience reviews for abduction.

Despite having some potential it is completely weighed down. Abduction tries to be like the Bourne films as well as having some Twilight like romance. This movie has literally little to no redeeming qualities and is definitely not worth your time unless you're into inept teen flicks.

Taylor Lautner needs a better starring vehicle than this. This film needed a major re-write. They had a good idea for a film but didn't execute it correctly. They tried to make Taylor like Matt Damon's Jason Bourne and it doesn't work here. It reminded me of the film Cold Light of Day with Henry Cavill and Bruce Willis. I thought that film was a little bit better than this one. One major problem is that character's aren't well developed. Another problem was the casting. I thought Taylor was better in the Twilight films or even Valentine's Day than this film. In my opinion he had no on screen chemistry with Lilly Collins. Lilly was better in Mirror Mirror than this film. Michael Nyqvist was better in Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol than here. A lot of the supporting actors, I am betting did this film for the paycheck. I hope Taylor's next film will be better than this one.

3.25. Honestly a lot better than I thought it would be. Not like Lautner is an awesome actor or anything, but he's far from bad. Down the line, he could actually be a decent action movie hero lol. It's kind of a long shot, but it's possible. One of the few reasons that I like this film (other than that I'm always down for an espionage film, is the veteran cast. Maria Bello, Sigourney Weaver, and Doc Oc from Spiderman 2 (can't remember his name lol) are all very good here, and I always love Jason Isaacs.

Since Nathan(Taylor Lautner) so enjoyed a high school party that he woke up on the lawn the following morning, it should come as no surprise that there is a hangover for him which is not helped when his father(Jason Isaacs) spars with him on his belated return. At least, his mother(Maria Bello) is kind enough to simply ground him for a week. That gives Nathan plenty of time work on a sociology project with Karen(Lily Collins), a cute classmate, who despite his own good looks and being star of the wrestling team, he cannot otherwise work up the courage to talk to. However, that will soon be the least of his problems as Nikola Kozlow(Michael Nyqvist) is about to change his life forever. For the record, I do not believe in the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus or gulty pleasures. Either you like something on its own merits and admit it publicly or you don't.(And don't even get me started on hate watching.) But when "Abduction" turns left when I was expecting it to go right, I was worried it might still find a way into that infamous category but it stays grounded enough in reality, including a sincere look at what it means to be a father, for it to work, however shakily. Throughout, John Singleton keeps this thriller moving in an old school sort of way, replete with a suitably nasty villain and an exciting climax. Yes, the movie falters whenever the young leads take center stage(kids these days...) but on the plus side you have Maria Bello and Jason Isaacs playing a married couple, plus Alfred Molina and Sigourney Weaver in other supporting roles.

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Common sense media reviewers.

Underwhelming action thriller has deaths, violence.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

The only positive message in the movie is when Nat

Nathan and Karen stick together, even when it woul

Suspense and action-movie violence featuring hand-

Parents are especially affectionate and do a touch

One "f--k," plus regular use of words including "b

An Apple laptop makes a few close-up appearances,

In the opening sequence, a bunch of high-schoolers

Positive Messages

The only positive message in the movie is when Nathan's birth father says "I may be your father, but I'm not your dad," indicating that the couple who raised him are Nathan's true mother and father.

Positive Role Models

Nathan and Karen stick together, even when it would be easier for him to go off on his own, and they're courageously willing to put themselves in harm's way for each other. Nathan comes to understand why his parents demanded that he know how to defend himself and why they kept his true identity a secret.

Violence & Scariness

Suspense and action-movie violence featuring hand-to-hand brawls and weapons (mostly guns, but there's also a bomb). Nathan and his father have an extended "sparring" scene that bruises them both up and makes a hungover Nathan vomit. Although many characters are killed -- people are shot both execution style and from a sniper's distance, beaten mercilessly, thrown off a train, and blown up in an explosion -- there's very little blood. One of the most upsetting scenes is when a young girl is forced into a room and punched and terrorized by a hit man.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Parents are especially affectionate and do a touchy-feely slow dance that their son sees. A guy keeps staring intently at a girl and vice-versa. At a pool party, some girls are shown in bikinis. Nathan is shirtless in a few scenes. After an intense couple of days of hand holding and near-death experiences, Nathan and Karen share a passionate kiss that ends up with her straddling him and his hands creeping up the back of her shirt.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

One "f--k," plus regular use of words including "bulls--t," "s--t," "ass," "d--k," "hell," "freak," "Jesus" (as an exclamation) and "damn."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

An Apple laptop makes a few close-up appearances, as do an Amtrak train, an Audi, a Mustang, a BMW, and a Lexus. Major League Baseball's Pittsburgh Pirates must have cooperated with the film, because a game is part of a climactic sequence; PNC Park, Pirates paraphernalia, and the stadium's famous Roberto Clemente statue are all on full display, and Nathan wears a Clemente jersey.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

In the opening sequence, a bunch of high-schoolers drink at a weekend party. Nathan gets drunk and wakes up shirtless on the hostess' lawn. He later vomits after being forced to spar with his father.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that this action thriller stars Twilight hunk Taylor Lautner and rising star Lily Collins , so it's sure to attract teens. But there's a fair bit of violence, language, and intrigue that might make it too mature for tween members of Team Jacob. The more intense sequences include several character deaths, execution-style shootings, sniper kills, and a couple of brutal beatings, one of which results in a man being chucked out of a speeding train. Even the teen girl is terrorized and beaten. (All of that said, there's not a lot of blood here.) Swearing includes "s--t," "ass," and one "f--k"); sexuality is mostly flirting, hand holding, and slow dancing -- plus one heated make-out session between teens. An early scene shows teens drinking, including the main character, who gets very drunk. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Community Reviews

Parents say (10)
Kids say (39)

Based on 10 parent reviews

Good MovieI

What's the story.

Nathan ( Taylor Lautner ) is a high school wrestling champ with attentive, affectionate parents and a few close friends. After he's paired up in class with his neighbor, the crush-worthy Karen ( Lily Collins ), the two start researching a sociology project about missing children ... only to discover a photo of a boy who looks a lot like Nathan. Curious about the uncanny similarities, Nathan contacts the website's chatline, which is actually maintained by a nefarious foreign baddie. Before Nathan can fully confront his mom ( Maria Bello ) and dad ( Jason Isaacs ), hit men strike the house, sending Nathan and Karen on the run. Reeling with grief and confusion, Nathan and Karen are advised by his therapist, Dr. Bennett ( Sigourney Weaver ), not to trust the CIA and are left on their own to evade both government and international operatives trying to track them down.

Is It Any Good?

The best part of this John Singleton production is the sheer number of excellent actors who pop up as supporting players. In addition to Bello and Isaacs -- who have more chemistry in a couple of scenes than Collins and Lautner in the entire film -- there's Weaver, Swedish star Michael Nyqvist (of the original The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo ) and Alfred Molina , who plays a squirrelly CIA agent in charge of the mission to rescue Nathan. It makes perfect sense that Singleton recruited a cast of acclaimed actors to bolster Lautner's leading-man debut, but sadly he's not up to the task yet. If anything, he should find an ensemble where he lends support to actors like his co-stars.

As Twilight heartthrob Jacob, Lautner's intensity makes him downright irresistible -- especially if you're only paying attention to his shirtless scenes. But the truth is that as adorable as Lautner may be -- and as gifted with the physicality necessary for an action career -- he lacks the acting range to carry a movie's emotional center. The scenes of Nathan crying are painful to watch, because you can tell how difficult they were for Lautner. And the screenplay doesn't do him any favors; it has him speaking and acting in a completely unbelievable manner for a guy who's just lost his parents. Collins is cute enough, but aside from one admittedly steamy kissing scene, the two don't conjure any heat.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the amount of violence in the film. Is it cartoonish and unbelievable or realistic and disturbing? How does that affect its impact?

What are some other movies that feature the "hidden identity" theme? Why do audiences respond to orphaned characters? Name some other famous pop-culture orphans.

How does the movie portray teen drinking ? Does it have realistic consequences?

Movie Details

In theaters : September 23, 2011
On DVD or streaming : January 16, 2012
Cast : Lily Collins , Sigourney Weaver , Taylor Lautner
Director : John Singleton
Inclusion Information : Black directors, Female actors
Studio : Lionsgate
Genre : Action/Adventure
Run time : 106 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : sequences of intense violence and action, brief language, some sexual content and teen partying
Last updated : February 13, 2024

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Abduction: film review.

Lily Collins, Alfred Molina and Maria Bello co-star in director John Singleton's far-fetched thriller about a teenager forced on the run to uncover his past.

By Todd McCarthy

Todd McCarthy

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Nathan clutches Karen's hand as the duo runs from bad guys coming for Nathan after he begins to learn his true identity.

It was probably inevitable that one day there would be a Taylor Lautner film called “Ab” something, so at the very least Abduction serves that purpose. Whatever else can be said about him, the teenage star definitely gets a workout here, traversing more woodsy territory in eastern America on foot than anyone since Hawkeye in The Last of the Mohicans . John Singleton ‘s action thriller has a decent sense of propulsion but, after a faintly intriguing start, the convoluted plot mechanics overwhelm everything else, making you feel you’re watching a detailed blueprint for a movie, and an increasingly far-fetched one in the bargain. This Lionsgate release offers enough chases, gunplay and adolescent eye candy to attract the intended audience, indicating mid-range box office results.

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DVD & Streaming
Action/Adventure , Drama

Content Caution

In Theaters

September 23, 2011
Taylor Lautner as Nathan; Lily Collins as Karen; Sigourney Weaver as Dr. Bennett; Maria Bello as Mara; Jason Isaacs as Kevin; Alfred Molina as Burton; Michael Nyqvist as Kozlow

Home Release Date

January 17, 2012
John Singleton

Distributor

Movie review.

The statue of David is more expressive than he is. And his smoldering good looks might fool you. But Nathan is a hurting young man. We know by the way he sometimes gets snippy with his mother, or the way he sometimes tries to beat the tar out of his father while sparring. We know by the way he flexes his biceps when folks he doesn’t like walk past him at parties.

He tells Dr. Bennett, his psychiatrist, that his life sometimes feels like that of a stranger. And he has dreams about the huge, hairy beastie he turns into every time that annoyingly sparkly vampire—

Oh, no. Sorry. Wrong dream. Nathan dreams that some strange woman gets killed right in front of him. And he’s had the same dream ever since he was a little kid.

His shrink tells him that when he has that dream, he should take a deep breath and ignore it. Ignore it with all the ignorance he can possibly muster. Turn his attention to something else (practicing his smolder in front of a mirror, perhaps). Forget about digging around in his subconscious, she says. Best to just pretend its not there, bottle it all up inside and go on with life. Oh, and as far as feeling out of place … well, best to let that go too. Time’s up!

But then one night while doing a rare bit of homework, Nathan runs across a missing persons website—one that features images of what missing kids would look like years later as adults. And he discovers that one of them looks just like … Taylor Lautner! And Nathan too, of course. But before he can get some answers from his parents, they’re gunned down right in front of him. And then the ne’er-do-wells nearly kill his pretty next-door neighbor, Karen by blowing up his house.

Nathan suddenly has that sinking feeling that there may be something more going on here, something that even his smolder can’t solve.

Positive Elements

Nathan is a nice guy—or so the movie tells us. We know he’s nice because when he passes out drunk after a party in someone’s front yard, he helps pick up the trash the next morning. We know he’s nice because when he’s fleeing would-be killers and needs to push people out of his way, he apologizes. And we know he’s nice because he does his utmost to try to keep Karen from being killed.

Karen has taken a shine to Nathan too. When an assailant demands that she tell him where Nathan’s hiding, for instance, she vigorously shakes her head in refusal. Also: Nathan’s parents sacrifice their lives for him.

Spiritual Elements

Nathan finds an important card embossed with a Christian cross.

Sexual Content

We learn that Nathan and Karen kissed when they were in eighth grade—then drifted apart. Now they quickly make up for lost time, hugging and smooching and clutching like crazy inside a train’s sleeper car. They smooch some more in a deserted baseball stadium.

Nathan’s parents also clutch and kiss. And his dad says Karen’s “hot.”

It takes the film all of five minutes to contrive a way to get Taylor, er, Nathan shirtless. Karen wears midriff-revealing and low-cut outfits, and uses her sex appeal to coax someone into doing something illegal. Workout wear is skintight. We see bikini-clad women fighting at a pool party. There’s a joke about virginity.

Violent Content

Killers invade Nathan’s home and, before it’s over, one of them has his neck broken and both of Nathan’s parents are dead from gunshots. Nathan pounds one of the attackers with his fists and a fireplace poker. Then the building explodes and throws Nathan and Karen into the family pool, where debris rains down around them.

Russian bad guys shoot and kill a bevy of CIA agents (at long range). CIA agents shoot villains. A would-be assassin is snuffed out by a sniper bullet. Nathan and a bad guy tussle on the train: Twice during the fight, the bad guy lies still, eyes open and vacant, only to revive again. So Nathan ends it once and for all by throwing him out a window. Nathan hurts his fist on an evildoer’s jaw and injures his leg jumping off a ledge. He and Karen both have to leap out of a careening car. And Dr. Bennett’s vehicle explodes.

Nathan plans to shoot and kill a baddie. Karen is hit, threatened (with the amputation of her finger), and tied up and gagged. We see Nathan’s birth mother killed in flashback: A killer wearing a gas mask beats her as a mysterious vapor fills the room.

After Nathan comes home drunk one morning, his dad forces him to put on boxing gloves and spar—insulting his son as they trade leather. Nathan grows enraged, and the two begin kicking each other too. Dad punches him hard enough to make him vomit.

Crude or Profane Language

One f-word, a half-dozen or more s-words and a frosting of other profanities, including “a‑‑,” “b‑‑ch,” “d‑‑n,” “h‑‑‑” and “p‑‑‑.” God’s name and Jesus’ name are misused once each. We hear a couple of crude references to male body parts.

Drug and Alcohol Content

The first time we meet Nathan, he’s on his way to a party with two buds to get drunk. (They tell each other, “Let’s go get drunk.”) While we don’t see the level of intoxication Nathan’s friends eventually hit (all three appear to be guzzling gallons of beer), Nathan winds up passing out on the party-thrower’s front lawn. His parents drink wine with dinner.

Other Negative Elements

In a stunt sure to be emulated, Nathan rides on the hood of his friends’ truck, egging on the driver to go faster. Characters lie to one another. One of Nathan’s friends sells fake IDs and later “borrows” an elderly woman’s car. Nathan spits in someone’s face.

Taylor Lautner’s Twilight -derived star wattage will certainly draw prepubescent moviegoers into theaters, where they will watch the postpubescent pinup get drunk, beat people up, take his shirt off and glower for the camera. They will wade through a simple yet strangely incomprehensible movie in which outlandish plot devices pile up like so much lint in the dryer. Though much of the film seems cribbed from an Alfred Hitchcock-style thinking-man’s thriller, the only real thinking Abduction audiences will be doing is pondering why Sigourney Weaver agreed to appear in it.

No one is actually abducted in Abduction . Yet the title still fits like a glove as it extends to us an unintentional truth: Sit through this film and you’ll realize that two hours of your life has been taken from you, with nary a ransom note in sight.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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Movie Review | 'Abduction'

At Least His Abs Get a Workout

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By Stephen Holden

Sept. 22, 2011

“You will then be responsible for the death of all your friends ... on Facebook,” the archvillain (Michael Nyqvist) of the risible thriller “Abduction” warns the baby-faced Nathan Harper (Taylor Lautner), a sort of teenage Jason Bourne in search of his true identity. Did I say risible? At the screening I attended, that threat prompted hoots of derisive laughter, as did other howlers, including, “I’m not dying here; there’s a bomb in the oven.”

A joke? Oh, if only.

Directed by John Singleton (“Four Brothers,” “2 Fast 2 Furious”), from a screenplay by Shawn Christensen, “Abduction” is a sloppy, exploitative act of star worship created (if that’s the right word for cynical hackwork) around Mr. Lautner, the pouty 19-year-old heartthrob of the “Twilight” franchise. The camera swoons around him as if he were a priceless sculpture, often moving in for extreme close-ups. The movie stops in its tracks long enough to ogle an extended smooch whose slurping seems scientifically calculated to take things to the brink of an R rating.

To give Mr. Lautner his due, he is a martial-arts dervish with perfectly sculptured abs. His acting, however, is another matter. I can’t recall another teenage star so opaque. If his physiognomy — recessed eyes that don’t seem to focus, a wide snub nose and Elvis-y lips — conjure Neanderthal manhood after a cosmetic makeover, his boyish monotone with its utter lack of inflection suggests that he is really an advanced robot simulating human speech without registering emotion or even comprehension.

Throughout most of the movie, Nathan is on the run with his across-the-street neighbor and high-school classmate Karen (Lily Collins), who, like Nathan, loses her sultry mystique once she opens her mouth. They are pursued by two small armies, one made up of C.I.A. officers, the other of Eastern European goons, who finally clash at a Pittsburgh Pirates game; both sides are desperately searching for a list of spies encrypted in a cellphone that landed in Nathan’s hands.

Don’t ask about the whys and wherefores; I doubt whether even the screenwriter could tell you. Reputable actors like Alfred Molina, Sigourney Weaver, Jason Isaacs and Maria Bello are on hand, but they can’t paper over the fatuity of the two leads and the screenplay’s gaping holes.

The trouble begins when Nathan comes across a photograph of his 3 1/2-year-old self on a missing-children Web site, a cyber fishing expedition that directs the baddies to his home, where they storm the place and kill his parents minutes after he discovers he is not their biological son. As a mad chase ensues, “Abduction” stokes the illusion that Nathan is suddenly the most important person in the world. Any self-centered teenager can identify with that.

“Abduction” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It has extreme violence.

Opens on Friday nationwide.

Directed by John Singleton; written by Shawn Christensen; director of photography, Peter Menzies Jr.; edited by Bruce Cannon; music by Edward Shearmur; production design by Keith Brian Burns; costumes by Ruth Carter; produced by Doug Davison, Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Lee Stollman, Roy Lee, Dan Lautner and Pat Crowley; released by Lionsgate. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes.

WITH: Taylor Lautner (Nathan), Lily Collins (Karen), Alfred Molina (Burton), Jason Isaacs (Kevin), Maria Bello (Mara), Sigourney Weaver (Dr. Bennett), Denzel Whitaker (Gilly) and Michael Nyqvist (Kozlow).

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Screen Rant

'abduction' review.

Is 'Abduction,' the dramatic thriller from director John Singleton, and starring Taylor Lautner, an exciting action offering or a brainless and underwhelming movie that takes itself too seriously? Read our review.

Screen Rant's Ben Kendrick reviews Abduction

A lot of moviegoers tend to associate director John Singleton with hard hitting dramas that, more often than not, have focused on controversial topics including socio-economic inequality and racial tensions - so, no doubt, it came as a surprise when the famed filmmaker chose to shoot a film starring Taylor Lautner. Abduction had been sold to Lionsgate with the Twilight heart-throb already attached - with the intention of testing the young star's leading-man mettle as well as capturing his Twi-hard fan base.

Singleton is confident in the final cut of Abduction and is already talking up a sequel. However, will audiences be as impressed with the action thriller, and Lautner's headlining performance, or is the movie just an attempt by Hollywood executives to cash in on big names - without having to deliver a competent piece of entertainment?

Unfortunately Abduction is nothing more than a middle-of-the-road action-thriller that will only be satisfying to teenage fans of Lautner or less picky audiences who can suspend enough disbelief to take anything portrayed onscreen seriously: be it the overly-melodramatic relationships, predictable "twists," or the paper thin storyline. Essentially, anyone who has viewed the Abduction trailer has already been exposed to 3/4's of the overarching plot - and, as a result, there are very few surprises, or exciting moments, to make a trip to the theater worth the cost of admission.

As mentioned, despite allusions to the contrary in the film's marketing, the Abduction story is pretty basic: Nathan Price (Taylor Lautner) is a high school kid who feels out of place (like most high school kids). However, after Price and his neighbor, Karen Lowell (Lily Collins), find a childhood picture of him (as well as a computer-rendered image of what he would look like now) on a missing person's website, the teenager is thrown into a massive government conspiracy - and, subsequently, a run-for-your-life adventure. Hot on his heels are a variety of mysterious people - such as Frank Burton (Alfred Molina) and Dr. Bennett (Sigourney Weaver) to name a few - all with hazy motivations. In order to stop running, and get back to a "normal" life, Price is forced into a series of dangerous altercations in a desperate attempt to uncover the truth about his past.

Throughout the runtime, Abduction appears to fancy itself much smarter than what actually plays out onscreen would indicate. This is a film that takes itself very seriously - with very few comedic moments and a few pretty brutal altercations (especially considering the film's PG-13 rating). As a result, the movie is a mishmash of "moments" that the filmmakers must have felt were important for "telling" Price's character arc - robbing the proceedings of credibility as each of these isolated moments undermine prior scenes and don't successfully build upon each other.

For example (being as vague as possible), there's a character that is identified early on in the film as someone Price can trust and, when things get out of hand, he and Lowell decide to head across the country to rendezvous with said person - until they hit a bump in the road and the plot line is completely derailed (and the aforementioned character vanishes from the story, never to be mentioned again). This might sound like a minor thing but if you were to chart the actual movement of the characters in Abduction , you'd quickly discover that there's a significant amount of "filler" - Price and Co. backtracking ground and retreading story ideas. The film lacks a real narrative drive and, for a story about people on the run, most of the characters are just wandering in circles - which, given a predictable and awkward plot, is especially boring to watch.

As mentioned, Lautner has been attached to Abduction for a long time - with studio heads no doubt testing his leading man muscle. Surely, Lautner handles himself well in some of the more physical moments of the film - he appears to have done a lot of his own running, jumping, and fighting - but falls entirely flat in intimate character moments. Despite a truly horrendous set of circumstances that occur in the first act of the movie, Price does very little but lower his eyebrows and pace around. It's unfortunate because, watching Abduction , it's easy to imagine Lautner (with a few more years under his belt) able to succeed in the same market Sam Worthington has been culling over the last few years - relying on physical/strong but silent type roles. However, Hollywood (in a mad rush to capitalize on the young actor's Twilight profile) has pushed him out the gate too soon - and undercut his chances of headlining another character-focused action thriller for awhile.

The rest of the cast is serviceable but bland. Alfred Molina and Sigourney Weaver are completely wasted (and have some of the worst lines that either actor has likely ever delivered). Ultimately, these characters are reduced to outlines who, as the story progresses, could have added a lot to the proceedings - if they had been given more to work with. Lilly Collins actually offers the most compelling performance in the movie - even elevating some of the scenes where Lautner isn't particularly convincing - as Price drags her character from one messed up scenario on to another. She's a competent addition and about the only cast member who seemed to know that the film wasn't going to get by on plot, melodrama, and Lautner's name alone.

In the end, there's very little to celebrate in Abduction. Aside from a few of the more physical moments in movie, the story is generic and cliche', the characters are one dimensional shells with little to do but run from place to place, and the performances are stilted at best and, more often than not, completely cheesy. Fans of Taylor Lautner will likely be satisfied by seeing the actor try on his leading man chops as well as enjoy the five separate occasions where the Twilight star takes off his shirt but, for fans of worthwhile trips to the theater, Abduction is hard to recommend.

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Movie Review: The Nonsensical, Unintentionally Hilarious Abduction

The darkly lit, heavily photoshopped movie poster for Abduction features Taylor Lautner skating down a slide of broken glass in a surfer position, clutching a gun in his hand. In the film, when this scene actually happens, it’s broad daylight, Lautner doesn’t have a gun in his hand, and, instead of riding the broken glass like a badass action hero, he’s sliding on his butt like a kid at a playground. The whole miserable film is similarly disappointing. Lautner makes a nice poster, but is he a leading man? No way. He’s being sold as the next great action star, but in Abduction , he’s just another kid on the bumpy slide.

Lautner plays Nathan, a teen with rage issues who discovers that his parents might not be his real parents when he stumbles across his baby picture on a missing persons site. His girlfriend, the pitifully flat Lily Collins, takes one look at the site’s computerized rendering of what that baby would look like as a grown-up teen and says, “Matt Damon meets you .” It’s rare to see a film position its star so blatantly and egregiously — since Lautner’s Nathan is not even a fourth-rate Jason Bourne. Even among teen action stars, Lautner is strictly junior varsity: Saoirse Ronan ( Hannah ) and Chloe Moretz ( Kick-Ass ) would both kick his ass.

The sloppy action sequences and unoriginal fight scenes wouldn’t be such a problem if Lautner could emote, but everything except his mouth seems frozen, as if he was Botoxed at birth. He’s all Blue Steel, no chops. (If he were the least bit funny, which he’s not here, he’d be the perfect star for Zoolander 2 .) Immobile and rubbery, it’s as if he’s only partially-animated and missing half his polygons. He’s bad acting’s human uncanny valley.

And the film itself? The plot is nonsense and, despite the moving trains and cars, John Singleton shoots the film as slowly as possible — all the better to appreciate the plot holes and awkward facial expressions. The script is filled with howlers, from a hysterical “You remind me of your mother” to the in-film plot summary, “A few days ago we were just a couple of high school kids; now it feels like a lifetime ago.” After that line, Lautner’s Nathan agrees, saying, “That’s because it was.” Following this stinker, it seems like a lifetime ago that Lautner was considered Hollywood’s next big thing.

Related: Hollywood Banked on Taylor Lautner Being a Star, But What If Abduction Fails? Robert Pattinson’s Back Muscles Are Very Impressive, and Other Revelations From the Twilight Comic-Con Panel

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Abduction (United States, 2011)

Perhaps the only way to approach Abduction that will not result in a 105-minute boredom-induced coma is to think of it as a comedy, preferably with a drinking game attached. There are laughs to be had, although none of them are intentional. Girls (and gay guys) enraptured by Taylor Lautner's smoldering eyes and well-formed pecs aren't likely to be overly concerned about his wooden dialogue delivery or unchanging facial expression, but everyone else will be chortling. This is a miscasting of mammoth proportions.

It boggles the mind that someone thought Lautner could make it as an action hero. On some level, I suppose it makes sense. Looking at a specimen like Arnold Schwarzenegger, arguably the biggest action icon of the '80s, one could develop a model: nice chest, bulging biceps, limited emotional range, incomprehensible dialogue delivery. The problem is, Schwarzenegger was always a "man's man," whereas Lautner is generally despised by straight males of all ages. That makes Abduction an action/thriller with females as its primary audience, which is box office poison. Over the years, with rare exceptions, action films have struck gold on the strength of teenage boys.

Abduction starts out in suburban Pittsburgh, where Nathan (Lautner) lives in high school bliss with his mother, Mara (Maria Bello), and father, Kevin (Jason Isaacs). He has a crush on the unbelievably hot girl across the street, Karen (Lily Collins), but, other than staring at each other with deep, soulful looks (lingeringly captured by Peter Menzies Jr.'s camera), they don't do much in the way of interaction. Nathan's life falls apart when, one day while surfing the web for a school research project, he stumbles upon a "missing children" website that leads him to believe his mom and dad may not be his real mom and dad. Some bad guys, led by rogue assassin Kozlow (Michael Nyquist, the male protagonist in the Swedish version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and its sequels), are suddenly after him, as is the CIA, led by Agent Burton (Alfred Molina). Once his "parents" are dispatched, Nathan's only allies are Karen and Nathan's shrink, Dr. Bennett (Sigourney Weaver), who becomes like Obi-Wan Kenobi in a pantsuit.

First of all, it must be acknowledged that the storyline for Abduction is shit. It's not silly or campy or deliciously over-the-top. It's mind numbingly awful. It rarely makes sense and seems to have been made for people who routinely don't pay attention or spend half the movie texting and visiting the snack bar. The movie ends with a huge WTF? anti-climax. I can never remember an action film concluding in quite such a lame manner. It doesn't quite fall into the deus ex machina family, but it's close. Can anyone imagine Arnold or Sly allowing one of their movies to end this way? What happened to the basic rule that the hero and the villain must go at it one-on-one?

The director is John Singleton. That John Singleton. The one who made his feature debut with the searing Boyz 'N the Hood . Admittedly, he's done his share of slumming since then, but this represents a new low. The man must have been hard up for work to agree to helm something this lifeless.

Singleton goes to great pains to draw a double line between the good and the bad. (The whole movie is ugly.) This is perfectly illustrated during a high profile chase through the concourse of the Pirates' baseball stadium. Nathan runs around people and, when he accidentally bumps into one, he pauses to apologize. Kozlow, on the other hand, plows through pedestrians, knocking them over with abandon, as if he's playing a video game in which points are tallied by collisions with innocent bystanders. Abduction also features a fight on a train that may have been inspired by the classic one in From Russia with Love , but it's hard to tell. The similarities could be a coincidence, and the intensity of the battle is more than a notch lower.

Lautner's limitations are on display from his first scene. Admittedly, he should not be judged based on his performance in Twilight and its sequels; those movies have an uncanny ability to suck the life out of even the most talented performers (Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning). However, if Abduction represents Lautner at his best, he won't be playing Hamlet any time soon. He is well-matched in Lily Collins, who equals him in both physical attractiveness and thespian ability. Whereas Lautner's expression is always one of brooding indifference, hers is one of whiny pouting. They spend a lot of time staring at one another, and even make out once, but there's no hanky panky. This is PG-13, after all. Lautner doffs his shirt twice. Alas, the topless count for Collins is zero. This is PG-13, after all.

Singleton has amped up the "star quality" of the production by recruiting "names" for secondary roles, probably in the vain hope that their presence will lend a patina of respectability to this misbegotten production. Their screen time disqualifies them for more than an extended cameo. Maria Bello and Jason Isaacs are eliminated at the end of a long and tedious introductory segment. Alfred Molina, who looks like he's wearing one of William Shatner's old toupees and has undergone some sort of face transplant, appears from time-to-time at key moments but never sticks around. And Sigourney Weaver shows up long enough to pick up her paycheck. Maybe she heard Ghostbusters III calling.

The bottom line is simple: Abduction (a title which makes no sense, by the way) has been made exclusively for the Taylor Lautner faithful. No other audience could focus exclusively on the actor's looks and ignore everything else in the movie. Card-carrying member of Lautner's fan club will be delighted because he's on screen for about 100 minutes, does the James Dean thing on a motorcycle, flexes his muscles at every opportunity, and strips down to his pants on a couple of occasions. For those who are indifferent to Lautner or who don't like him, the only way to survive Abduction is under the influence of a controlled substance, and even that may not be enough.

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Abduction (2019) Review

“Abduction” Theatrical Poster

AKA: Twilight Zodiac Director: Ernie Barbarash Cast: Scott Adkins, Andy On, Truong Ngoc Anh, Lily Ji, Aki Aleong, Daniel Whyte, Mike Leeder, Tom Caserto, Brahim Chab, Philippe Joly, Semiquaver Iafeta, Jai Day Running Time: 98 min.

By Paul Bramhall

I confess to having intentionally avoided the Scott Adkins vehicle Abduction in 2019. In a year which saw the British martial arts star either headline or feature in the likes of Avengement , Triple Threat , and Ip Man 4: The Finale , the Roger Corman produced sci-fi romp backed by China felt like it had a “we all have bills to pay” vibe written all over it. You know the ones that occasionally pop up in any actor’s filmography who isn’t regularly headlining big budget Hollywood productions – Incoming , Green Street 3: Never Back Down , Legendary , the list goes on. It had always remained a curiosity somewhere in the back of my mind though, so as 2020 draws to a close I decided to give it a go (I know, checking out a movie a year after it was released is no biggie, but Adkins cranks them out so fast that Abduction is already 7 movies ago).

The main draw behind Abduction is the reunion of Adkins and Andy On, 17 years after they went head to head in the Tsui Hark directed 2002 Hong Kong flick Black Mask 2: City of Masks , back when they were both starting out in the industry. In a word of warning, anyone hoping to see the pair in a slightly less out-there tale than what their first outing offered (in short – Adkins as a mad scientist mixing up the DNA of pro-wrestlers with animals) will be left disappointed. While there’s no pro-wrestlers in sight, instead we have an alien race who’ve parked up above a fountain in Vietnam (invisibly, of course), and need human qi to be able to return home. We learn that some people have stronger qi than others, which includes Adkins’ daughter and On’s wife, so when they’re both kidnapped by the aliens to be drained of their lifeforce, the pair team up to rescue their abducted loved ones.

Before proceeding any further, I should point out that the Blu-ray of Abduction (yes, we love our physical media here at COF) comes with 2 versions of the movie – the producers cut, and the director’s cut. The version being reviewed here is the director’s cut. The director in question is Ernie Barbarash, a journeyman director who exclusively works in the DTV field. Barbarash has worked with Adkins before on 2011’s unremarkable Assassination Games , which pitted Adkins against his childhood hero Jean Claude Van Damme. In addition to Assassination Games , he also helmed the Van Damme vehicles 6 Bullets and Pound of Flesh , as well as the Michael Jai White actioner Falcon Rising . While none of them match up to the DTV action flicks that the likes of Isaac Florentine and Jesse V. Johnson crank out, at best Barbarash’s work is passable entertainment, at worst mediocre and plodding.

The out-there plot then could well be what results in Abduction being so entertaining. Working from a script by Mike MacLean, whose illustrious credits include penning Dinocroc vs. Supergator , Sharktopus , and Piranhaconda (notably all also produced by Roger Corman), the fact that Abduction doesn’t take itself too seriously is arguably its biggest strength. Until they officially team-up, Adkins and On mostly act as if they’re in 2 completely different movies, which works in the narratives favour. After being kicked out of the alien’s base in the opening scene and finding himself in a fountain in the middle of Ho Chi Minh, Adkins realises he has no memory and is stuck with a stutter.

Playing his character like a mix of Adam Sandler in The Waterboy and Frank Spencer from Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em , it’s a rare comedic performance from the British thespian, and it surprisingly hits all the right notes. While Adkins stumbles around Ho Chi Minh trying to remember who he is and being slapped in the face by locals before he can spit out what he wants to say, On on (no spellcheck, this isn’t a double up of word usage) the other hand plays a poker faced former military man turned assassin under the employment of the local Chinese gang boss. After doing one last job to send a message to a rival gang trying to encroach on the Chinese’s turf, he wakes up one morning to find his wife gone, and despite having what he assumes was a dream about the aliens abducting her, believes it was the rival gang taking revenge and goes on the warpath.

The two men are eventually brought together by Vietnamese actress Truong Ngoc Anh, the star of the still unreleased in the west Vietnamese action flick Tracer . Ngoc Anh plays a psychiatrist who ends up with Adkins on her couch, and although reluctant to believe his story about aliens abducting his daughter, after she visits the park and meets an equally befuddled On who teleports in front of her eyes, she decides to connect the pair. Soon the truth about the aliens is revealed, and if they don’t get their victims “strong and beautiful qi” they choose to eat them “like chicken”!

Despite how goofy everything sounds so far, there are elements of the sci-fi concept which are actually rather cool. The alien’s ability to split reality is visualised through On opening the bedroom door to find the aliens abducting his wife, and the bedroom floating off into space while On remains stuck in the doorway (think the hypnotism scene in Get Out for reference). It’s clearly budget friendly, but nevertheless proves an effective way to convey the concept. Small touches like the fact whenever On tries to enter the bedroom after the event results in nausea and disorientation further help to establish the rules of the world Abduction takes place in. Speaking of hypnotism, I confess the scene contained here involving Ngoc Anh hypnotising Adkins is probably one of the funniest ever committed to screen, and unlike a lot of his performance, I don’t think this particular instance was intentional.

But let’s be honest, nobody is clocking into an Adkins flick to see how well he can act hypnotised, we’re here for the action. Thankfully Abduction gives both Adkins and On a number of opportunities to strut their stuff. The fight choreography is handled by Tim Man, who by this point has worked with Adkins on multiple occasions as both choreographer and occasional onscreen opponent, with assistance from the main villain of Boyka: Undisputed , Brahim Achabbakhe. Achabbakhe gets to pull double duty, playing the head henchman of the rival gang On goes after, as well as one of the aliens. On gets into brief scuffles with both characters, with the outcome of one definitely more successful than the other. Adkins and On also get to team-up for an entertaining 2 vs 2 battle against HK regulars Tom Caserto ( Big Brother ) and Semiquaver Iafeta ( Helios ), which involves some nice impacts and grappling.

The highlight for the fight action though goes to a battle between Adkins and On, resulting from Adkins being taken over by the aliens, and effectively becoming a kung-fu terminator. In an interview I did with him in 2018 he’d mentioned he was carrying a few injuries while filming Abduction (which at the time was going by the title Twilight Zodiac ), however based on this fight you can’t tell. The flashy aerial kicks may be absent, but I enjoyed the more grounded aspect of it, and the presence of On feels like it brings an element of the classic HK choreography style. There’s a nice flow of exchanges, and Adkins genuinely feels like a force to be reckoned with, conveying plenty of power behind his blows.

If anything, I was a victim of my own expectations when it came to the finale. Having seen Achabbakhe return as one of the aliens after his role as a henchman, I’d been expecting things to build up to a confrontation pitting Adkins and On against his enhanced skills, and nobody choreographs a 2 versus 1 fight quite like Tim Man! But alas it wasn’t to be, and instead the real finale is martial arts free, instead opting for some sacrificial heroics to stop the victim’s qi from opening a portal back to the alien’s home world. It’s enjoyable, and involves the kind of cheesy low budget CGI that used to populate early 2000’s sci-fi B movies. It sounds like a negative, but I find low budget CGI being used to create an effect that can’t be done practically much more charming than big budget CGI explosions and fire, so it anything it only contributes to Abduction’s B-movie appeal.

Seeing Adkins play somewhat against type, combined with On who we frankly don’t see enough of, easily make Abduction worth a watch. The fact that it’s about qi sucking aliens in Vietnam, well, that’s just a welcome bonus.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 7/10

15 Responses to Abduction (2019) Review

About time Paul!!! Been waiting for your review for this film for ages. isn’t CHINESE FILM expert Mike Leeder is in this one as a bloody leather face guy… I keep on seeing photos of him in full costume on social media… does he gets his ass beat by Andy On?

The answer to all of your questions is – yes! Rumour has it that Leeder is actually playing the same character as he did in ‘Fearless’, so if you’re interested to learn about the referees fate 13 years on, this is the place to be.

We should also point out that this review is dedicated to Dan Hagen!

Hey, thanks for the shout-out! Life’s been wearing on me these past few days, so it was a nice surprise to wake up this morning and see this.

The initial vibe I got from Abduction wasn’t too dissimilar from yours. I ended up putting it on one night while doing laundry, with a very casual “let’s see what the hell this thing is” kind of approach. What I ended up getting was a fun, warm-hearted sci-fi action flick, with both Scott Adkins and Andy On putting on strong and likeable performances.

I had no idea there were two different cuts. The version I watched was simply streamed off of VUDU (no physical), and a little bit of investigation leads me to believe that this may have been the shorter producer’s cut. While I doubt there’s much difference, the blu-ray’s already been on my wishlist for a while now, so, hey… there’s one more excuse for me to finally buy it. 🙂

Excellent review as always. Cheers.

Cheers Dan, and we can now make if official, you’re a COF influencer! (The 2nd most sought after influencer title after Instagram :-D)

NO PAUL ! NO ! YOU WILL NOT GIVE THIS A HIGHER RATING THAN SEIZED ! NO !

C’mon, this was far more entertaining than ‘Seized’ ! The good news is, the soon to be released millennial romantic thriller ‘Dead Reckoning’ got a lower rating, which now looks like it’ll be kicking off the 2021 Scott Adkins-athon.

Also Paul what exactly is the difference between the Producer’s cut and the Director’s cut of this film ? :O

That’s a good question, I did fast forward through the Producer’s cut, and honestly didn’t notice any discernible difference. Maybe co-producer Mike Leeder could shed some light on the matter?

I definitely liked this better than Legacy of Lies.

the years had taken their toll on Referee Randall, but the Aliens did offer a steady supply of wellington boots and coco pies, and a man has to live!

A lot of fun making the movie in both Vietnam and China, we had a great team and i managed to craxk my sternum fighting Andy On(my fault) which was fun!

The difference between the two cuts were very minimal, I think it was just a couple of dialogue beats

While the Iqiyi version is a bit more Andy focused in the edit

I had a decent time watching Abduction. As I’ve mentioned before, the movie felt like it was written by Giorgio A. Tsoukalos from that aliens show, and there seemed to be some influence from Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

The beginning with Scot Adkins’ stutter made me cringe, but the action beats were good. I’m glad that Scott Adkins and Andy On were given a proper fight scene together after that messily choreographed fight in Black Mask 2.

What are some other good movies with Andy On that show off his abilities? I need to explore his filmography some more.

Also, I re-watched the fight scene at the end where Scott Adkins becomes imbued with alien powers, and it made me realize that I need another Universal Soldier movie ASAP.

Hey Dan. There’s a few! For me my overall favorite fighting performance of his is in Dennis Law’s ‘Bad Blood’ (inexplicably re-titled ‘King of Triads’ for its US release) from 2010, the same year he had what’s probably his most distinctive performance, as the villain in Yuen Woo-Ping’s ‘True Legend’ . He’s fought Donnie Yen twice, playing the villain in both 2011’s ‘The Lost Bladesman’ and 2013’s ‘Special ID’ (in which he ironically replaced Vincent Zhao, his co-star in ‘True Legend’ ). He’s close with fellow thespian Philip Ng, and their co-starring roles facing off against each in 2014’s ‘Once Upon a Time in Shanghai’ and 2019’s ‘Undercover Punch and Gun’ are both worth a watch. For outright fun, it’s hard to go wrong with 2014’s ‘Zombie Fight Club’ .

I finally caught this and agree with Paul, that large chunks of Abduction feel like 2 movies haphazardly stitched together, and unfortunately I was more interested in the half NOT having Scott Adkins.

I was wishing I could have seen more of Andy On as a slick assassin facing down Russian mobsters as opposed to Stuttering Scott hunting down inter-dimensional aliens harvesting DNA and rebuilding some super feng shui compass to get home.

I checked this out for Adkins but it’s On who walks away with the movie’s coolest scene: Offering his captors tea and snacks before beating seven bells out of them. Abduction could have used more of such scenes.

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The Ending Of Abduction Explained

Taylor Lautner is best known for one of two roles: the shark-like preteen with anger issues in "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl" and his stint as the sweet yet strong Jacob Black in the "Twilight" series. After he became a household name thanks to the latter series, he branched out and tried his hand at lead roles . Unfortunately for him, his first foray as the leading man didn't go very well, and his 2011 mystery thriller "Abduction" is still clinging to a 5% rating on Rotten Tomatoes .

"Abduction" had all the components to be a hit: action, romance, and plenty of twists. It featured Lautner as Nathan Harper, a high school teen who realizes his mom Mara (Maria Bello) and dad Kevin (Jason Isaacs) are not actually his biological parents. As soon as Nathan confirms his suspicions, Mara and Kevin are killed by mysterious operatives, and Nathan goes into hiding with his classmate Karen Murphy (Lily Collins) , who gets wrapped up in the mess. The bulk of the film is about Nathan and Karen running from the mysterious forces that want to hurt him, while attempting to discover the truth about his family history.

While "Abduction" was a bit of a mess, the ending left us with even more questions that will probably never be answered.

What just happened?

At the end of "Abduction," Nathan comes face-to-face with the main villlain, Nikola Kozlow (Michael Nyqvist). Seconds before Kozlow pulls the trigger to kill Nathan, a sniper takes Kozlow out. Nathan then gets on a phone call with his biological father, Martin Price (Dermot Mulroney), who not only shot Kozlow but has pulled some strings and managed to convince everyone to leave Nathan and Karen alone to live in peace.

"Abduction" ultimately had a happy ending, but the twisty-turny plot still left us with plenty of questions. Why does Martin have such a huge pull with the CIA? What is the purpose of Nathan being shirtless so often? How did no other passengers on the train hear the intense fight? As an MTV review succinctly put it, "Moments like these happen pretty consistently for the entirety of the film. It was a never-ending barrage of things that didn't make sense, whether small and subtly incompetent or glaringly over-the-top examples of idiocy, it was incessant." While we were happy to see everything wrap up nicely, there wasn't much of an explanation as to how things were taken care of — we sort of just have to accept that they were.

Abduction hurt Taylor Lautner's career

Though many action movies do well enough to pump out a few sequels, "Abduction" had such a negative reception that it's no shock the franchise ended there. What was a bit surprising was the negative effect "Abduction" seemed to have on Lautner's acting career. Aside from an overall Metsacore rating of 25 , Lautner's performance in the film was also overwhelmingly panned by critics. Catherine Brown of Filmink wrote "[Director John] Singleton is poorly equipped to handle teenage angst, a fact made far worse by cringe-worthy dialogue and a wooden leading man who proves that he has not yet developed the skills required to carry a film." A less harsh review came from Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly , who noted that Lautner "[isn't] a terrible actor, but if he wants a career after the Twilight fades, he'll pick better films."

Lautner has been in a few other projects since "Abduction," but he has yet to shake the reputation that precedes him. Hopefully, if he never makes a full-time return to acting, he has wisely invested his "Twilight" earnings.

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"Entertaining, Inspiring Finish"

What You Need To Know:

(BB, PP, Ro, Pa, C, LL, VV, S, N, AA, M) Strong moral, patriotic worldview overall, marred slightly by some Romantic, pagan behavior, plus a couple light references to the Christian Cross; 13 obscenities (including one “f” word), one strong “J” profanity and three light exclamatory profanities, plus teenager has hangover and vomits and is grounded for drinking; some strong and light action violence includes bomb in oven explodes, men shoot teenager’s adoptive parents, adoptive mother who turns out to be a CIA agent fights with one thug, man kill’s boy’s biological mother with deadly gas, distant explosion of a car, villains shoot agents protecting teenager and his girlfriend, man hits teenage girl and ties her up and gags her, teenager fights villain in train compartment and eventually knocks him out, teenager throws villain off speeding train, chase scene thru hospital, villain shot dead, boxing between teenager and adoptive father gets a bit rough, villain threatens girlfriend’s parents when they fly back from Europe; no sex scenes but passionate and intense kissing between two teenage high school seniors, teenager shouts the “b” word and hero’s teenage friend lightly laments he’s a virgin; brief upper male nudity and young women in bikinis at party where there’s a pool; underage alcohol use and teenage drunkenness, plus teenager is grounded for a week for staying out and coming home with a hangover the next morning; no smoking or drugs; and, teenage protagonist argues with the father who raised him but doesn’t know he’s adopted, adoptive father punishes son by goading him during boxing training but it turns out father has a secret positive intent for what he’s doing, parents neglect to tell son he’s adopted but it’s partly to keep him safe from his real father’s enemies and potential enemies, youthful partying at fancy house where apparently college-age daughter’s parents are away, traitor exposed.

More Detail:

ABDUCTION isn’t record-breaking entertainment, but it’s a fun, solid movie that earns its kudos by the time of the exciting ending, which has a good finish that may leave most viewers wanting more. Which is just what the director, John Singleton, has already announced when he recently told the press a sequel is already in the works, whatever the box office for this first movie turns out to be.

The movie opens in an edgy way, however. Young high school senior, Nathan (played by young acting heartthrob Taylor Lautner of THE TWILIGHT SAGA), and his two buddies break into a college party at a fancy estate. Nate clearly gets soused and wakes up the next morning on the lawn. Back at home, his mother, Mara, grounds him for a week, and his father, Kevin, gives him a harsh boxing lesson. Mara interrupts the lesson before the male testosterone gets out of hand.

Apparently, Nathan has an anger problem that almost landed him in Juvenile Hall a year ago, but he’s gotten it mostly under control, or so his therapist (played by Sigourney Weaver) tells him. Nathan still suffers from nightmares, however, about a child’s mother being attacked while the child hides under the bed.

At school, Nathan is partnered with Karen, the beautiful girl across the street who Nathan likes but hasn’t dated, on a class paper about missing children. While working on their computers together at Nathan’s house, Nathan finds a child photo that looks like him on a website about missing children. He messages the site for more information, but the woman who answers him back turns out to be an Eastern European thug who alerts his Serbian boss in England, a man named Kozlow, that they’ve found Nathan.

Nathan’s mother admits to him he’s not their biological son. Just then, however, two men come looking for Nathan. Soon, Nathan and Karen are running from the bad guys. They find themselves in an international spy plot that sends Nathan on a quest to find his real father and mother.

Some minor parts of the dialogue and plot developments in ABDUCTED are goofy and predictable, but the movie becomes more interesting the more Nathan learns about his real mother and father. Everything leads to a really nice finish that extols family, adoption and patriotism. Enough questions are left open about the hero’s parents, however, to ensure a sequel.

In one sense, ABDUCTION is like a fairy tale, and it’s structured like a fairy tale. In many fairy tales, the hero or heroine finds themselves in a situation where their family has been attacked in some way by the villain or villains. In such fairy tales, the hero or heroine often undergoes a journey to defeat the villain and restore the family or repair what has been lost. ABDUCTION follows this pattern but has an ending that doesn’t fully complete the pattern but that could lead to a completion of the pattern in the sequel, or perhaps even a third movie.

Ultimately, ABDUCTION turns out to be an inspiring action movie for mature teenagers. Though Nathan learns his lesson about drinking alcohol, caution is still advised because of the movie’s youthful party scene, passionate kissing between Nathan and Karen, violence, and some foul language.

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Abduction Review: It's Bourne Identity for Hormonally-Damaged Teenage Girls Who Have Never Heard of Bourne Identity

By Dustin Rowles | Film | September 23, 2011 |

Think of Abduction this way: There’s the Bourne Identity , then way below that is Mark Wahlberg’s Shooter . Then there’s 50,000 feet of crap. Underneath that is Liam Neeson’s Unknown . Dig another 100,000 feet until you hit a liquid-y orange-and-brown ooze and there you will find Abduction , a movie so bad it shouldn’t be allowed to call itself a movie. It should be called bad performance art for troglodytic, subhuman Caucasian bed-wetting females with a predisposition for shirtless, roundhouse-kicking dildos. Comparing Bourne Identity to Abduction is like comparing Beyonce’s ass to Danny Devito’s: Sure, they’re both big, but one you want to tap and the other you want to shave and disinfect before you feed to stray dogs.

Put another way: Acne is more pleasant than Abduction .

There’s a reason Taylor Lautner was nearly replaced after the first Twilight movie: He’s not an actor. He’s a pair of abs attached to an inbred two by four. There are park statues with more range than Taylor Lautner. The kid is about as versatile as a blood clot and as charming as a yeast infection. According to entertainment news and junket headlines, Lautner is being groomed to be the next big action star, but that’s only because future casting directors have not seen Abduction . He can’t hack it. Granted, Hollywood doesn’t ask a lot of its action stars (see Arnold Schwarzenegger) but there is a minimum threshold to qualify, namely the ability to change facial expressions. Lautner has two looks: Stoic puffy face, and stoic puffy face with his nose slightly scrunched. He is so wooden that he makes Keanu Reeves look like Robin Williams on a coke bender. I’ve seen better acting on story boards.

In Abduction , Lautner plays Nathan, a mannequin head affixed to to a neck-less 200-pound brick shithouse. A senior in high school, Nathan has always felt out of place around people with the ability to change facial expressions. His presumed father (Jason Isaacs) is a hard ass who subjects Nathan to mixed-martial arts matches if he’s caught drinking, while his mom (Maria Bello) stands out of the way, nods lovingly and counts her money while daydreaming about staircase scenes with Viggo Mortenson.

Meanwhile, Nathan is also smitten with a classmate and next-door neighbor, Karen (Lily Collins), with whom Nathan is partnered with on an assignment that inexplicably involves browsing missing children websites. What Nathan doesn’t realize is that an evil Eastern European man set a trap for him by posting a kid photo of Nathan on the missing children website in an attempt to lure Nathan out of hiding because apparently the evil Eastern European ( Girl with a Dragon Tattoo ’s Michael Nyqvist) knew that Nathan would one day have an assignment in high school that asked of him to browse missing children’s websites. Obviously .

Believing that his parents are not who they say they are, Nathan does what any slow-bus dolt would do in that situation: He calls the phone number listed on the website. A few hours later, two henchman show up, kill his adopted parents, and blow up his house. Nathan, witness to his parents death, grabs Karen and runs.

Minutes later, a top dog at the CIA (Alfred Molina) illogically intercepts a 911 call that Nathan makes to report the death of his parents, but before he can convince Nathan to give himself over to the CIA, Nathan’s shrink (Sigourney Weaver) shows up with a bouquet of balloons and explains that the CIA shouldn’t be trusted, either. In fact, she says that the only person he can trust is her, the lady who unexpectedly arrived with a passel of Get Well Soon balloons and has been pretending to be his psychologist for the last decade.

John Singleton, who used up all of his talent 20 years ago on Boys n the Hood , takes an excruciating hour to set up Abduction , essentially enlarging the 30 second trailer into the film’s first two acts before an exposition dump that removes all of what little mystery there is. Long story short: The CIA is trying to get to Nathan before the evil Eastern European gets to Nathan because evil Eastern European intends to use Nathan to blackmail Nathan’s real father, another CIA Agent, into giving up a very important list of names in exchange for his son’s safe return. Nathan can’t trust anyone. So, he runs, and then in fine action movie tradition, he confronts (at a Pittsburgh Pirate’s game, no less).

I won’t deny that Lautner does have a talent for kicking the air, punching things, and running fast, but this is true of almost anyone you pull out of a martial arts class. I also won’t deny that he’s a well-sculpted robot, but this is also true of most K-Mart jean models. But Lautner has no presence; he’s a charisma vacuum who looks like he’s acting as a stand-in for Mario Lopez on a very bad Lifetime movie. You can take a bad story with bad dialogue and wrap it around a movie starring Stallone or Bruce Willis or even, in a pinch, Charming Potato. Those guys have, to greater or lesser degree, a commanding presence. But you can’t do that with Taylor Lautner: He only highlights how bad everything else is around him. And this is a Taylor Lautner vehicle : This movie only exists to provide a setting for Lautner to slide down glass windows and kickbox. Yet, it’s impossible to invest yourself in it when the lead actor looks like an embarrassed kid with his girlfriend who is trying to escape a room he accidentally farted in.

Abduction is as generic as store-brand ketchup, and while that might be true of most action films, Singleton ( 2 Fast 2 Furious, Four Brothers ) continues his descent into made-for-television mediocrity by failing to bring anything to the film other than what cut-and-paste screenwriter Shawn Christian puts on the page. It’s a poorly paced thriller that, in an effort to keep its budget down, backloads most of the action sequences. The problem is, by the time they arrive, the audience — even those sympathetic to Jacob Black — have long since given up. Abduction is a mess; a poorly executed, atrociously acted nightmare of a slog.

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