Music, Style & Culture

Abduction

Staggeringly incompetent, risible action thriller that can't make a star out of Taylor Lautner.

Released in cinemas 28th September 2011.

One of the most staggeringly incompetent films DIY has seen this year, Abduction is a lightweight, braindead action flick built as a star vehicle for an actor nowhere near ready for Cruise-like top billing.

Taylor Lautner may have good physical presence and some top fighting skills, but the young actor is incapable of facial expressions, or vocalising emotion for that matter. This isn't a problem when playing hot-headed teenwolf Jacob Black in the Twilight films, with Lautner great value as the muscular rival for Bella's affections. However, it takes more than a six pack and a dazzling smile to be a leading man, and Lautner sinks without charisma as he is left to carry the film.

This dumb-as-rocks espionage thriller sadly comes from John Singleton, who many moons ago gave us the seminal Boyz n the Hood. Working from Shawn Christensen's inept script he throws scenes together with little panache, failing to create a single efficient set piece. The premise is a good one - teenage boy spots his face on a missing children's website, and wonders who the hell his parents are. What could've been a tension-dripping mystery is fast-tracked to a jumbled, incomplete, pig's ear of a tale involving CIA agents and vaguely international baddies.

Joining Lautner as the obligatory cute girl in tow is Lily Collins. Daughter of pop star Phil, the actress got her "break" in The Blind Side, and was recently picked as Tarsem Singh's Snow White. Even when accounting for the lack of talent behind the camera, Collins makes for an exceptionally bland love interest, with only a cynically lustful scene with Lautner compensating for the complete lack of spark elsewhere. As useless sidekicks go, she's only one step above Rosie Huntington-Whiteley's character in Transformers 3.

Alfred Molina looks as confused as the audience as a CIA agent, and original Girl With the Dragon Tattoo star Michael Nyqvist is forced to utter risible lines such as "I'm going to kill all your friends... on Facebook". In fact, the only cast members who seem to be having a blast are Lautner's "parents", Maria Bello and Jason Isaacs, with the latter good fun as the rough-housing pop secretly training his kid for bigger issues than the high school jock.

Never offensively awful (looking at you, Sucker Punch), but Abduction doesn't even have the decency to be so bad it's good (looking at you, Legion). However, there are plenty of laughs to be had, mainly at dialogue so stilted even the likes of Sigourney Weaver (as Lautner's psychiatrist) can't spit it out with conviction. If there's one thing Singleton can never be forgiven for, it's for capturing a performance from the goddess Weaver so agonisingly awkward it could put her on the Razzie nomination list.

Rating: 3/10