Let me begin by saying, Abduction is not director John Singleton’s fault. Would you blame the McDonald’s drudge at your local fast food joint for that toxic bad burger he’s serving up for you?
That said, Shawn Christensen’s CIA conspiracy thriller screenplay for Abduction is pretty nonsensical, even as Singleton (Boyz N The Hood) juices up the proceedings with plenty of sleek suspense. But a plot no nuttier, than your basic ludicrous CIA schemes that the public has become privy to, ever since the debut of the Freedom of Information Act out of Washington DC.
Twilight’s squinting stud Taylor Lautner turns up in Abduction, once again as not what he appears to be. Only this time around as high schooler Nathan Harper, he hasn’t a clue. A carefree, boozing suburban party animal, Nathan falls off a car drunk one night, and picks himself up in exposed, too much information now hairless rear end long division mode. Not exactly the body part his girl fans are breathlessly waiting for.
And without giving too much away in what has been billed as a hush hush, top secret scenario, Nathan, while dabbling in a school project about missing children with curvy coed Karen (Lily Collins), begins to suspect he may be kidnapped and adopted. Though somewhat never too swift in that department anyway, the fact that baby pictures of him don’t exist and Dad (Jason Isaacs) beats him up on a regular basis for sport, haven’t raised an inkling of suspicion in the infamously inebriated lad. Along with a hunch that his father and mother (Maria Bello) ‘are too boring to be psychos.’
That is, until some Eastern European assassins turn up from London by way of Brighton Beach to possibly re-kidnap the lost and found and lost again Lautner. At which point he’s dodging assorted espionage agents and playing hooky for good with Karen, as they dash away to parts unknown with alternately fretting and evil spies in pursuit of them when not one another. Including his possibly shady shrink (Sigourney Weaver) into insisting Nathan dismiss bad nightmarish memories instead of scrutinizing them. And at one point escorting her patient out of an emergency room while supposedly hiding under a dozen enormous get well balloons.
With his teen hormones raging in a different sort of way as a rebel without his claws, bulked up babe magnet Lautner flees multiple negative adult role models, which humans at his age tend not to trust anyway. And while seemingly possessing more incredulously unscathed lives, than a repeatedly born again Twilight vampire.
Lionsgate
Rated PG-13
1 [out of 4] star