On the couch

DVD REVIEW

Abduction
Directed by: John Singleton
Starring: Taylor Lautner, Lily Collins, Alfred Molina, Maria Bello, Sigourney Weaver

Colombiana ***
Directed by: Olivier Megaton
Starring: Zoe Saldana, Michael Vartan, Cliff Curtis, Lennie James

I’m formulating a new style of classification of film. It’s not related to age or suitability, that’s been done to death. Instead it will be a quality standard. Films will be rated according to the capacities of their creators and stars – in theory it could be a great leveller for deciding what you want to rent. War Horse got middling reviews because, as Steven Spielberg movies go, it wasn’t really ‘up there’.
If, however, Joe Bloggs the unknown director made his filmmaking debut with it, the world would stop, sit up and possibly bark Auld Lang Syne to herald its approval.
While it’s still a work in progress, the new classification scheme – which I’m provisionally calling the Lautner Scale – would allow me to judge films like Abduction and not risk apoplexy or brain death trying to conceive of how something of that nature could have been let loose on the world without Indiana Jones standing by to warn us “Don’t look at it, no matter what happens!”
By acknowledging that Abduction has been ranked as a one on the Lautner Scale, I can be happy that the star, one Mr Taylor Lautner, remembers that he’s on camera for the entire film.
In a similar vein he never once walks into the camera or tries to scratch himself behind the ear with his foot. Instead of lamenting the sort of acting range that would make a Giant Sequoia feel inferior in the ‘being a bit wooden’ stakes, I can celebrate the fact that all of Taylor’s lines are in an identifiable language.
For what its worth, Lautner plays a proto-jock high school git who discovers that his parents aren’t his parents. Almost as soon as this bomb drops, Ma and Pa are killed and young fella goes on the run, evading CIA agents and nasty terrorist types as he tries to find out the secrets of his past.
He’s joined on his escapade by girl next door Lily Collins who does a fine impression of a damsel in distress from a 1920s movie.
It’s pap of the highest order. The kernal of the story is a good one but the execution is awful. While all the grown-ups in it are performers of the highest order – Sigourney Weaver, Maria Bello and Alfred Molina all show their faces – the focus rests largely on Lautner and he just doesn’t have the chops or the charisma to pull it off.
A wasted opportunity.
With the introduction of Gina Carano to the shallow pool of legitimate female action stars, it’s nice to see the waters being further deepened by Zoe Saldana in the Olivier Megaton-directed Colombiana.
The American actress stars as Cataleya, a young woman whose parents were killed by a Columbian drug lord, Don Luis. Forced to flee her home as a child, the precociously vindictive child is taken in by her uncle (played by Cliff Curtis) in Chicago and quickly announces her intention of entering the family business – assassination.
It turns out that daddy-dear came a cropper after years of being the number one hitman for the Don and, flash forward 15 years, the now grown up Cataleya is her uncle’s go-to gal for similar jobs.
The thirst for vengance never left the little one and after leaving her calling card – she draws a flower on her victims – on one of Don Luis’s flunkies she finally gets her shot at her parents’ killer.
Mixed up in this reasonably straightforward revenge yarn is the fact that while Cataleya might fancy herself a stone cold killer, she has a few human foibles – a love of her family, an unconventional relationship with an artist (Michael Vartan) and a certain blind-spot when it comes to goading international drugs cartels, the FBI and the CIA.
Complications notwithstanding, what Colombiana is, in reality, is a platform for Megaton to show off his keen eye for a cool visual and how well his star looks when breaking into a building, beating the hell out of a bad guy or (seriously) swimming with sharks. And in this respect it does the job perfectly.
Saldana is brilliant as the emotionally fragile badass and she is well served by a strong but not too flashy supporting cast. The only weakness in the character lies in a certain unapproachability.
If there’s one thing Colombiana lacks sadly, it’s drama. There’s never reallly a moment when you worry for the safety of Cataleya and while it’s entertaining to watch her lay waste to scumbags and government goons alike, you’re never properly thrilled.