Abandon Ship
It's sink or swim for the cast of Abandon, a thankless thriller fashioned by writer Stephen Gaghan in his directorial debut. Gaghan won an Oscar for his Traffic screenplay. He'll never win such acclaim for this story that despite solid performances ends up feeling like one big lie.
Gaghan drowns uninteresting characters in prolonged exposition and denies us the pleasure of the ones that are interesting. The story that appears in the trailers fails to materialize quickly enough to hold your attention, and when it does it confuses cheap scares with genuine thrills.
The plot revolves around Catherine 'Katie' Burke (Katie Holmes), a senior at an unnamed university who is furiously trying to finish her thesis while courting job offers from prestigious companies. Everything is going right for her until Detective Wade Handler (Benjamin Bratt) starts nosing around campus, investigating the disappearance of her former boyfriend Embry (Charlie Hunnam), a rich recluse who has been missing for two years. Handler suspects that Embry may not be missing, but dead. This stirs up a variety of emotions for Katie. She begins having dreams about Embry, and even sees him around campus, stalking her. It is then that she runs to Handler for... protection?
I ask this as a question because every early scene in the movie builds Katie up to be a strong woman, especially in a job interview that exemplifies how no-nonsense and professional she can be. She confronts Embry on several occasions with little visible fear, and he doesn't hurt her. So what is so scary and menacing about him? Why does she need protection? The truth is that she runs into the arms of the detective because the movie wouldn't be cliché enough unless they get involved romantically.
You'd think from the ominous score that Embry is Jack-the-Ripper, but the truth is he isn't even a shadow of a villain. Is he supposed to be? I'm not even sure Gaghan knows, because he scatters flashbacks of Embry throughout the movie, and in almost all of them Embry and Katie are sharing a tender moment of passion. Thank goodness, though, for the flashbacks. They are the only escape from the drab cinematography that plagues the rest of the movie. It appears to have been shot entirely by the fluorescent light of a public restroom. Beautiful people and bad lighting just don't mix.
Worst of all are Katie's abandonment issues that stem from her father leaving when she was young, emphasized by poorly edited flashback sequences of her childhood. This is nothing more than a cheap ploy to establish a pattern of abandonment in Katie's life and help you see her as a victim.
The cast is as terrific as they are allowed to be with Holmes giving the best part of her performance early on. The job interview shows her true potential. It is unfortunate for Hunnam, who is outstanding as 'Nathan' in the British drama Queer as Folk, that this cinematic blunder is not likely to earn him the notice he deserves. Despite what the trailer would have you believe, Embry is more of a minor role. Bratt plays a cop again, and there isn't much to say about his performance. I hope that he can escape this kind of casting in the future. He is too talented to be playing these kinds of roles.
I would have given anything for more of Zooey Deschanel, who adds life and much needed color to every scene she's in, much like she did in The Good Girl.
The climax would almost make the rest watchable if it wasn't so predictable, but it is evidence that things could have been better.
Abandon isn't just the title, it's a warning. Better yet, an exclamation. Abandon any notions of seeing this movie immediately.
Gaghan drowns uninteresting characters in prolonged exposition and denies us the pleasure of the ones that are interesting. The story that appears in the trailers fails to materialize quickly enough to hold your attention, and when it does it confuses cheap scares with genuine thrills.
The plot revolves around Catherine 'Katie' Burke (Katie Holmes), a senior at an unnamed university who is furiously trying to finish her thesis while courting job offers from prestigious companies. Everything is going right for her until Detective Wade Handler (Benjamin Bratt) starts nosing around campus, investigating the disappearance of her former boyfriend Embry (Charlie Hunnam), a rich recluse who has been missing for two years. Handler suspects that Embry may not be missing, but dead. This stirs up a variety of emotions for Katie. She begins having dreams about Embry, and even sees him around campus, stalking her. It is then that she runs to Handler for... protection?
I ask this as a question because every early scene in the movie builds Katie up to be a strong woman, especially in a job interview that exemplifies how no-nonsense and professional she can be. She confronts Embry on several occasions with little visible fear, and he doesn't hurt her. So what is so scary and menacing about him? Why does she need protection? The truth is that she runs into the arms of the detective because the movie wouldn't be cliché enough unless they get involved romantically.
You'd think from the ominous score that Embry is Jack-the-Ripper, but the truth is he isn't even a shadow of a villain. Is he supposed to be? I'm not even sure Gaghan knows, because he scatters flashbacks of Embry throughout the movie, and in almost all of them Embry and Katie are sharing a tender moment of passion. Thank goodness, though, for the flashbacks. They are the only escape from the drab cinematography that plagues the rest of the movie. It appears to have been shot entirely by the fluorescent light of a public restroom. Beautiful people and bad lighting just don't mix.
Worst of all are Katie's abandonment issues that stem from her father leaving when she was young, emphasized by poorly edited flashback sequences of her childhood. This is nothing more than a cheap ploy to establish a pattern of abandonment in Katie's life and help you see her as a victim.
The cast is as terrific as they are allowed to be with Holmes giving the best part of her performance early on. The job interview shows her true potential. It is unfortunate for Hunnam, who is outstanding as 'Nathan' in the British drama Queer as Folk, that this cinematic blunder is not likely to earn him the notice he deserves. Despite what the trailer would have you believe, Embry is more of a minor role. Bratt plays a cop again, and there isn't much to say about his performance. I hope that he can escape this kind of casting in the future. He is too talented to be playing these kinds of roles.
I would have given anything for more of Zooey Deschanel, who adds life and much needed color to every scene she's in, much like she did in The Good Girl.
The climax would almost make the rest watchable if it wasn't so predictable, but it is evidence that things could have been better.
Abandon isn't just the title, it's a warning. Better yet, an exclamation. Abandon any notions of seeing this movie immediately.
