by Brian Kesler
There's an old joke that actors are nothing more than "professional pretenders." It is very clear to me that acting and pretending are two very different things. On the one hand, you have a film full of refined actors, like 'Drive.' On the other, you have a movie plagued with pretenders. It's called 'Abduction,' and it reeks of superficiality.
The premise is decent enough, and could've made for a thrilling action film: Taylor Lautner of 'Twilight' fame, plays Nathan, just a regular teenager who gets drunk at high school parties, can't seem to talk to girls despite his raging muscles and wafting testosterone, and fights with his father. Quite literally. Punching, kicking - the soundtrack even goes into "action mode!" as they quarrel. Talk about dysfunctional. Anyways, he finds himself on a missing persons list, some scary people come knocking at his door, kill his parents, stalk him, he escapes with a random girl, and must discover who he is and why he's so valuable.
The result is anything but interesting. The exposition is rushed with sporadic artlessness, which makes the film very difficult to follow. The entire experience feels awfully disjointed. Organization was in great need here. A first draft is not usable. I don't think screenwriter's know that sometimes. For instance, Nathan's discouragement at the demise of his "parents" comes too soon. The film should've let him escape danger without a word of remorse or exposition, and then - when the action ceases - proceed with the emotionality. The arrangement of the sequence makes us feel that Nathan doesn't really feel remorse. The scene also happens to be terribly photographed and ... "acted." The same could be said of any emotionally charged sequence in the piece.
About that whole pretending business. It's quite true. Not a single line in the film feels genuine. The dialogue rivals the prequel 'Star Wars' trilogy for woodenry, but the pretenders make it seem worse than it actually is. Teenage actors, particularly, feel they have to move their head and eyebrows and mouth and face and eyes like constipated hyenas. One of the greatest shots in the history of the movies is a shot of Ingrid Bergman in 'Casablanca,' reminiscing of her long lost love. The shot is probably between 45 to 60 seconds, and during it all, Bergman doesn't move an inch. Not even her pupils. She is absolutely still. She engrosses herself in the moment and delicately paints a portrait of a character. The "actors" of 'Abduction' don't seem to inhabit characters. They are merely there to speak lines. The direction is partially to blame. The staging is horrifically simplistic. You can almost hear the voice in Taylor Lautner's head saying, "Line - line - line ... move - to - my - marker ... turn - to - the - girl ... line - line - line ... look - to - my - left .... line - line - line ... move - to - second - marker."
The editing is not concise or clean. Shots don't seem to flow together in a natural way. Some cuts seem alarmingly out of place, certain shots go to long, and vise versa. The photography doesn't help, either. Action films generally have poor photography which is covered up by helter-skelter editing, but this film has rigidly paced editing, which draws attention to the exceptionally bland visuals. The music isn't terribly handled, but it's certainly not used with any sort of consciousness.
Director John Singleton adds this to his resume, which also includes '2 Fast 2 Furious,' and 'Shaft.' His first film was 'Boyz n the Hood.' He seems to be getting worse as he goes along. It's just amazing to me. How can a director have such a staining touch as to make Sigourney Weaver seem like a monotonous slab of mild cheddar cheese?
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