Stolen (2009)

Seriously? If I had to watch this again to save the world, goodbye world! There was nothing to the wooden characters and the story line was silly. The wife was cute, that was the plus.

Stolen is an mystery thriller that stars Josh Lucas and Jon Hamm together with Rhona Mitra,Jimmy Bennett,James Van Der Beek,Marcus Thomas and Jessica Chastain.The story revolves around Detective Tom Adkins, a man haunted relentlessly by the disappearance of his ten-year-old son, Tommy, Jr. It was directed by Anders Anderson.A small-town policeman works to uncover the truth behind two crimes: the disappearance of his son eight years earlier, and a fifty-year-old homicide of another boy.No leads immediately turn up in that case, but he does receive an early-morning phone call that draws him to the mangled and mutilated remains of a young boy slain 50 years prior. Tom takes on the case in an attempt to find absolution, and a second tale evolves, set 50 before, involving a man named Matthew Wakefield and his son John. The baffling similarities between the Wakefield case and Tommy Jr.'s mysterious fate push Tom to the brink of sanity and ultimately lead him on a collision course with fate. Gradually, one step at a time, Tom stumbles onto the horrifying truth about what happened to his boy. Barely holding onto his sanity and bound by redemption, Adkins unravels the unspeakable truth behind what happened to his son.Presented in a barrenness, uninspired package, the film takes an interesting premise and turns it into an unforgivably predictable and flimsy genre.Hamm's and Lucas' performances are fine, but first-time director Anderson is heavy-handed and overwrought, portraying emotional turmoil with clichés.Too bad that it is far from being an average film because of it.

The plot is pretty simple: a man who is searching for his lost son gets wrapped up in a parallel mystery from 50 years earlier. It isn't intended to be a Hitchcockian thriller with lots of action, twists & turns, but instead it's a great character study into the mind of a man who borders on obsession. It asks the questions: when are we supposed to let go, and if we do pursue closure, at what cost? Over the course of his many-year investigation, the man's life becomes a total mess, and in that respect we see some interesting parallels with the excellent Clint Eastwood film "In the Line of Fire" (about a secret service agent who fails to save JFK and who is tasked with foiling a similar assassination decades later). Both films ask us what is the difference between perseverance and obsession? The answer, even after the credits roll, is up to you.Something I really liked about this film is the way the director used surrealism to blend the two timelines, 1958 and 2008. Scenes would blend seamlessly from one to the other. For example, there's one shot in a bar where the camera flows through the room beginning in 2008 and ending in 1958 without any cuts. This subtle style, in addition to the underlying mystery of the whole story, forces the audience to keep on their toes.The basic plot is pretty straightforward, but there are a lot of background questions & themes that are not as obvious. These questions give the film substance. Religion is a minor theme that crops up visually in the form of crucifixes and subtle lighting effects. Guilt is another subtle yet powerful theme. I also sense a bit of existentialism in that the heroes are subjected to some rotten luck without any apparent rhyme or reason, and it is only through the individuals' strength of character that they manage to make it through the day. In all, there's a ton of stuff going on, and if you like your films to be full of philosophy and questions of morality, this will be a real treat for you.Other great films worth checking out are "Changeling" (2008) about a woman searching for her lost son, "A Very Long Engagement" (2004) about a woman searching for a soldier reportedly killed in action, the aforementioned "In the Line of Fire" (1993) about a secret service agent trying to redeem himself for losing JFK, and a wonderful unknown gem called "Into Temptation" (2009) about a priest trying to find a suicidal confessor before it's too late.

At the end of the credits, I always read all the credits after every movie I watch because you learn things, was The Boy in The Box. I researched that and found out that there had been a murder of a small boy, 4 or 5, in rural PA back in 1957 who was found in a card board box by the side of a road. It has never been discovered who he was, and many detectives and others have tried solving the case over the years. He is known as America's unknown child. You can google the boy in the box to read more of this unsolved homicide. Tragic and sad. But after seeing the movie and reading about this case, it was closely related and interesting to see how the movie was loosely based on some of the facts of the real case. I thought the movie was well done.