Random Felonies

Never judge a book by its cover and a movie by its tagline. Because Stolen’s ‘12 hours, USD10 million, 1 Kidnapped Daughter’ isn’t one percent as intriguing as the promoters have tried to make it sound. Simon West’s latest effort, at putting up a decent action film in a year we saw The Bourne Legacy, The Dark Knight Rises and Skyfall, is in vain.

Originality aside, as a standalone film too, Stolen has its share of loopholes and ridiculous and phony elements in the narrative. The Mardi Gras parade has been insignificantly included in the story and the FBI make mistakes that even a 12-year-old boy, who reads crime fiction, won’t. David Guggenheim’s writing is derivative most of the times and bears resemblance to the plot of Taken. Add to that, the fact that ‘stolen’ is just another word for ‘taken’ doesn’t really work in favour of this film. 

The film opens with a bank robbery that goes bad for Will Montgomery and his little gang. While Will himself gets arrested, his partner Vincent gets shot in the leg as the rest of them escape. After serving eight years in prison, Will is out on parole to find that his teenage daughter has been kidnapped by Vincent, who, on the records, has been long dead. Vincent has a sadistic plan to make Will pay for the loss incurred eight years ago and asks for his share of the bounty in return of his daughter’s life. Will, first tries to get some help from the FBI, and failing to do so, decides to do what he does best – rob a bank again. Alas, a circle is complete.

In terms of direction, Simon West, who is known for his work in the action thriller genre, is a colossal disappointment. Teaming up with Nicolas Cage for the first time after his debut film Con Air, West has exhibited a certain decline in standard, technically as well as charismatically. After The Mechanic and The Expendibles 2, this film comes across as another step down for the director. In terms of performances, Nicolas Cage tries hard to class up his acting with a few pauses between dialogues and the rest of the cast just reads the lines that were handed out to them. Nothing noteworthy in that area either.

To sum up, the film is a stale plot wrapped in a tin foil of a narrative tied with a ribbon called Nicolas Cage. And quite frankly, you will have realised at the end of the movie that the only thing stolen, were 95 precious minutes of your life.

Rating: 1 out of 5

Published in DNA After Hrs (Pune) on November 10, 2012