Abandon (2002)

Katie Burke (Katie Holmes) is a college senior trying to finish her thesis, and land the big job. Detective Wade Handler (Benjamin Bratt) is tracking down missing person Embry Larkin (Charlie Hunnam). He is a rich artistic student who was Katie's boyfriend when he disappeared 2 years ago. He's an enigma and a mystery that continues to haunt Katie.This thing is very muddled. The sad part is that there is a good movie in here somewhere. Katie Holmes is actually pretty good. There are a lot good actors coming in and out of this like Zooey Deschanel, Melanie Lynskey, and Tony Goldwyn. But first time director Stephen Gaghan has stuffed so many things in here. There are flashbacks, present day flashes of Embry, too many characters, pushing the colors to blue, and a disjointed flow. It's as if Gaghan couldn't get out of his own way.And the movie doesn't allow the mystery to advance. It drags on for far too long. It's a lot of glimpses of Embry. And Katie isn't quite frantic enough. Benjamin Bratt doesn't have the presence to play the cop. It has a bit of creepy atmosphere, but it wears thin pretty quickly. And the payoff comes out of nowhere to rewrite most of the movie.

A rich kid has been missing for quite sometime and his inheritance is up from grabs, so his death needs to be verified. A detective goes out searching for the truth. The kid's girlfriend he left behind seems like the place to find the truth. The cop falls for her as he seeks answers and the boyfriend seems to have returned just in the nick of time. The movie has a twist at the end and the truth is in the oddest of sources,This movie had nothing special about it, some of the acting was OK and some was bad. Katie Holmes, Ben Brat, the great Fred Ward in a small role, Zooey Deschanel, Melanie Lynskey and Gabreil Man were ones to pay attention to. Charlie Hunnan was horrible in this picture and he was like a poor man's Heath Ledger and thats a major insult.I watched this movie and was bored the entire film. It was so slow and when something did happen it was nothing exciting, the ending was unexpected but by the time I found out the truth I had lost interest… This movie is a thriller that was quickly forgotten and with good reasoning. I gave it 2 out of 10 stars, and I am not sure if it even deserved that.

What does it matter if the plot moved slowly? I don't agree with the other comments here that say that there was no character development or that the movie was boring. It wasn't. It built up slowly but firmly to a very disturbing ending. The filming was brilliant, dark, moody, creepy. It kept me on the edge of my seat. It was a disturbing film because it hinted all the time at Katie's possible mental illness and her real abandonment issues, but somehow you were rooting for her to be the heroine and to find happiness with the cop. It almost seemed at times that reality was forcing its way into Katie's consciousness, which scared her, and then she returned to the self that she presented to the world. She was a psychopath. The library scene was scary, as was the scene with the strobe lighting where she 'sees' Embry. The abandoned dorm house that was to be razed was also creepy, the way the house stood in the background bathed in a kind of white light at night. It was eerie. The only thing that really didn't make sense was that no investigations of the abandoned dorms were ever done by the police. It would seem to me that this would have been done in reality when students went missing. This is the only reason I didn't give the film a 10. Otherwise, kudos to Katie Holme for great acting, and to Benjamin Bratt as well. His was a sympathetic character.

SPOILERS THROUGH: I do think this movie was a bit scary but that, to me, was the movie's strongest point. Well-that and a terrific performance from Katie Holmes. But the movie I did not care for. I'd heard very bad things about this movie and on the plus side, It Really isn't as bad as some have said but on the minus side, it isn't terribly good either.One thing that bothered me was for such an interesting premise, the movie itself wasn't all that interesting. It moves at a snail's pace and I predicted the "twist" relatively quickly. This one's not that difficult to figure out though on the plus side, the way it unravels has genuine impact. That was well done, I guess, and genuinely creepy as well.Maybe if the rest of the movie had been that absorbing it would have worked better. All I know is there is such a thing as using to many try hard to scare tactics. They succeeded with that but in the process, didn't do such a good job on character development, visuals or just the enjoyability aspect of viewing the movie.Watching this movie one feels like their in a tunnel. The whole movie seems to go almost in slow motion as well. It is a very dark movie and I'm not talking about the plot, I'm talking about the visuals. They are very dark and very gloomy. The whole thing with Katie's visions became overdone after awhile. She and Benjamen Brat, the Cop, had zero chemistry and he is to Interesting a character to have so little to do in the movie. I didn't care for the "twist" either or the ending in general. I wish it had gone in a different direction.Basically the previews of this movie make it look a lot more interesting then it winds up being. I did think there were some positives, the ones I mentioned above but I wouldn't want to view this movie again. My vote is slightly below average and a 4 of 10.