Abduction (2011 film)

For other uses, see Abduction (disambiguation).

Abduction
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John Singleton
Produced by	Doug Davison Ellen Goldsmith-Vein Lee Stollman Roy Lee Dan Lautner Patrick Crowley
Written by	Shawn Christensen
Starring	Taylor Lautner Lily Collins Alfred Molina Jason Isaacs Maria Bello Sigourney Weaver Michael Nyqvist
Music by	Edward Shearmur
Cinematography	Peter Menzies, Jr.
Editing by	Bruce Cannon
Studio	Vertigo Entertainment Quick Six Entertainment
Distributed by	Lionsgate
Release date(s)	September 23, 2011 (2011-09-23)
Running time	106 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$35 million
Box office	$82,087,155

Abduction is a 2011 American action thriller film directed by John Singleton and starring Taylor Lautner, Lily Collins, Sigourney Weaver, Maria Bello, Jason Isaacs, Michael Nyqvist, and Alfred Molina. The film is about a teenager who discovers that his parents are not really his when he sees his baby picture on a missing people website. The film was released by Lionsgate on September 23, 2011.

Plot

Nathan Harper (Taylor Lautner) is a teenager who lives with his parents, Kevin (Jason Isaacs) and Mara (Maria Bello). He has a recurring nightmare, and consults a psychiatrist, Dr. Geraldine "Geri" Bennett (Sigourney Weaver), to discover why. One day, Nathan is partnered with his neighbor and longtime friend Karen Murphy (Lily Collins) on a school assignment about missing children. Karen finds a website that shows what the children would look like as they got older through age-progression technology, and Nathan discovers that a boy named Steven Price, aged approximately 3 years when photographed approximately 15 years ago, would look exactly like him at the present. Searching in his basement, he finds the same shirt that Steven is wearing in the picture and realizes that he and Steven are the same person.

Nathan contacts the website's operator, unaware that he is a Serbian terrorist. The man reports back to his commander, Nikola Kozlow (Michael Nyqvist), who deploys two agents to Nathan's house. They attack Nathan's parents, who tell him to run before being murdered. The house is destroyed. Nathan and Karen escape and attempt to call the police, but the call is intercepted by CIA operative Frank Burton (Alfred Molina), who tells Nathan that he's in danger, and sends a team to dog him down. Before the team arrives, Dr. Bennett appears and tells Nathan that Burton can't be trusted. She reveals that Nathan's biological father, Martin (Dermot Mulroney), is a CIA agent who stole a list from Kozlow with the names of corrupt CIA operatives. Kozlow created the website in order to locate Nathan and use him as leverage to force Martin to return the list. Kozlow's men appear, having intercepted Nathan's call. Bennett tells Nathan to run away and head for a safe house in Arlington, Virginia. Karen decides to go with Nathan. Before they leave, Bennett tells him he can only trust his father and a man called Paul Rasen, and blows up her car to facilitate both their escape and her own.

Nathan and Karen arrive at the safe house, where Nathan finds Martin's cellphone, as well as an address and photo of his biological mother, Lorna Price (Elisabeth Röhm). They discover that she is dead. Nathan visits her grave and Karen notices fresh flowers, so she asks the caretaker about recent visitors. He reveals that the last visitor was Paul Rasen from Nebraska. Nathan and Karen head to Nebraska on a train. Kozlow's right-hand man, Sweater, follows them. When Karen leaves to get food, he kidnaps her and engages Nathan in a fight until Nathan overpowers him and throws him off the train. Karen escapes and reunites with Nathan. They leave when the train stops in response to Kozlow's agent's death. Nathan takes Kozlow's agent's phone during the fight. Burton and his men find the two and convince them that they want to help. They stop at a diner, where Burton tells Nathan about the list. Nathan checks Martin's phone and finds the list, which contains Burton's name. Before Burton can react, Kozlow's men attack the diner and kill several of Burton's men. Nathan and Karen escape while Burton and his partner Agent Burns (Antonique Smith) kill Kozlow's men.

Kozlow's right-hand man's cellphone rings and Nathan answers it. Kozlow reveals that he has planned to kidnap Karen's parents and will kill them if Nathan doesn't give him the list. Nathan agrees, but says that he'll choose the place of the exchange. Kozlow agrees. Nathan realizes that his nightmares are due to repressed memories of Lorna being murdered by Kozlow while trying to protect him. Nathan decides to give Kozlow the list at a Pirates baseball game, and reveals to Karen that he actually intends to kill Kozlow. Nathan receives a call from Martin (who is also at the stadium) who tells him not to give Kozlow the list. Nathan ignores his advice, and tries to shoot Kozlow, who steals the gun and tries to force Nathan to give him the list. Burton's men, stationed all over the stadium, open fire as Nathan escapes, with Kozlow in pursuit.

Martin calls Nathan and tells him to lure Kozlow to an open area. Nathan does so, and, as Kozlow prepares to kill Nathan, Martin kills Kozlow with a sniper shot fired from a nearby building. Burton's men appear and capture Nathan. On their way to CIA headquarters, Burton attempts to decrypt Martin's cellphone. However, his superiors reveal that Martin has warned them that Burton would attempt this in order to remove his own name, and Burton is detained. Martin calls Nathan one last time and apologizes for everything. He says that he'll always be watching over Nathan. Nathan then reunites with Karen and Bennett, who tells him that she has arranged for him to live with her until he graduates, at which point he can move out to attend college. Nathan thanks her and leaves with Karen for a date in the empty stadium.

Cast

• Taylor Lautner as Nathan Harper
• Lily Collins as Karen Murphy
• Alfred Molina as Frank Burton
• Jason Isaacs as Kevin Harper
• Maria Bello as Mara Harper
• Sigourney Weaver as Dr. Geraldine "Geri" Bennett
• Michael Nyqvist as Nikola Kozlow
• Elisabeth Röhm as Lorna Price
• Aunjanue Ellis as Francheska
• Antonique Smith as Sandra Burns
• Dermot Mulroney as Martin Price

Production

Development

Lionsgate bought screenwriter Shawn Christensen's spec script for Abduction in February 2010, with actor Taylor Lautner attached to the film. The studio won a bidding war for the screenplay, acquiring it for $1 million. Gotham Group and Vertigo Entertainment had developed the script, based on a story idea by Gotham's Jeremy Bell.

Lionsgate rushed to start principal photography in July, due to Lautner's schedule to begin work on the last two Twilight films for Summit Entertainment. Writer Jeffrey Nachmanoff was hired to work on the screenplay, and John Singleton signed on to direct in March. Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Lee Stollman, Roy Lee, and Doug Davison produced the film, and Jeremy Bell and Gabriel Mason executive produced. Lautner's father, Dan Lautner, also produced, the first film from their Tailor Made Entertainment label.

Filming

On a budget of $35 million, principal photography began on July 12, 2010 in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area. Lionsgate returned to the region due to tax benefits from Pennsylvania's tax credit program, after filming My Bloody Valentine 3D, Warrior, and The Next Three Days there in 2008 and 2009. An open casting call for extras held at Carnegie Mellon University drew over 900 people in June, many of whom were teenage fans of the Twilight film series.

Many of the film's scenes were shot in suburban Mount Lebanon, and some others in Forward Township. Scenes were shot at Hampton High School in Hampton Township, a suburb north of Pittsburgh. The school's name and mascot, the Talbot, appeared in the film, as did real students, cheerleaders, and the marching band. Production continued in Pittsburgh, Mount Lebanon, Greensburg and Hampton Township, and lasted into September 2010.

Soundtrack

Abduction OST
Soundtrack album by various artists
Released	September 20, 2011
Label	Epic

1. Train – "To Be Loved"
2. Lenny Kravitz – "Come On Get It"
3. Raphael Saadiq – "Heart Attack"
4. Oh Land – "Twist"
5. Hot Bodies in Motion – "Under My Skin"
6. Black Stone Cherry – "Blame It on the Boom Boom"
7. Blaqk Audio – "The Witness"
8. Cobra Starship – "#1 Nite"
9. Alexis Jordan – "Good Girl"
10. Matthew Koma – "Novocaine Lips"
11. Superstar Shyra – "DJ Love Song"
12. Donora – "The Chorus"
13. Andrew Allen – "Loving You Tonight"
14. Edward Shearmur – "Abduction Suite"

Reception

Critical response

Abduction was universally panned by film critics; review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 4% of 92 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 3.3 out of 10. The website's consensus is, "a soulless and incompetent action/thriller that not even a veteran lead actor could save, let alone Taylor Lautner." Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, gives the film a score of 25 based on 19 reviews.

Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a C, commenting that Lautner is "not a terrible actor, but if he wants a career after the Twilight fades, he'll pick better films." Roger Moore of the Chicago Tribune gave the film two out of four stars, saying it "falls in the same corner of the youth market as the Twilight movies. Some moments and many lines feel cribbed from that series." Andrew Barker of Variety called the film "a haggardly slapdash Bourne Identity knockoff, never rising above the level of basic competence." James Berardinelli gave the film one out of four stars, saying, "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." Catherine Brown of Filmink also gave the film a scathing review, saying that "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."

Lautner has been nominated for a Golden Rasberry Award for Worst Actor for the upcoming 32nd Golden Rasberry Awards.

Box office

After an unexpected weak opening, the film became a moderate box office success. Abduction only grossed $28 million domestically but did slightly better around the world with over $54 million to a total of $82 million worldwide.

Home media

Abduction was released on North American DVD and Blu-ray on January 17, 2012.

See also

• The Face on the Milk Carton, the 1995 television movie based on a book series

External links

• Official website
• Abduction at the Internet Movie Database
• Abduction at AllRovi
• Abduction at Box Office Mojo
• Abduction at Rotten Tomatoes
• Abduction at Metacritic