Review of Stolen (2012) by Quincytheodore — 10 Dec 2012

With the trendy "kidnapped daughter" plot, stolen from Taken's playbook, Nicolas Cage once again disappoints in his all new movie made of mediocrities and no appeal. Everything barely holds together, plenty of inconsistencies plagued the story and while it tries to offer minimal excitement, it turns into a boring mess. Bordering on comical, it also has contrasting serious tone, which is delivered in a heavy handed manner. This creates strange performance, especially on some parts, and leaves me wondering whether it's made in the '90s.

Stolen uses many uninspiring elements to glue itself, although the soundtrack is catchy enough. Will Montgomery (Nicolas Cage) is an ex-con, a thief who had a job gone bad, now he aims to save her daughter and turns his life around, on screen, not real life. The problem is there are many odd plots that just don't make sense and rely too much on coincidences. Furthermore, the movie tries to pave for some clever twists, but unfortunately they come off predictable or just unimpressive. Nicolas Cage does his trademark angst and desperation, with bits of longing for redemption, quite like he did in Con-Air, also carrying plushie doll for his daughter.

Josh Lucas got the lousy part as Vincent, the one legged antagonist. He doesn't look right, creepy in a ridiculous kind of way. Someone who has a modern peg leg, abnormal amount of fingers and is probably high the entire time, is more goofy than daunting. He deteriorates even more in latter part, almost mimicking Jason Voorhees. The rest of the cast are plain and mostly have the durability of only one elbow from Nicolas Cage, or simply a pretty eye candy. Without anything special and mundane parts cobbled together forcefully, Stolen will shamelessly take your time and money, then leave you with only regret.