Todd (Labine) wants everything to be just perfect at the family cottage where he plans to propose to Cammie (Akerman). But things go awry with the arrival of Todd's slacker brother Salinger (Petronijevic) and his free-spirited girlfriend Masha (Punch). When Todd accidentally dispatches his irksome sibling with an axe, Cammie is determined not to let murder stand in the way of their happiness. From: IMDb.com
Directed by: Peter Wellington
Starring: Malin Akerman, Tyler Labine, Lucy Punch and others
This easily could have been a high profile movie. It basically had the right sort of actors and concept for it but nobody picked this movie up and it's not hard to see why really.
Having a good and potentially interesting concept is one thing but turning it into a decent and suspenseful movie is a whole other ballgame. This movie just never develops into something truly engaging, tense, mysterious or surprising to watch.
It's one of those movies that's mostly set at one location and to be frank, the movie started off promising as well. It showed plenty of potential with its concept and side-plots but the film-makers did absolutely nothing with it at all. You would expect this to be a movie with plenty of twists and turns in it, or one that plays mind-games with its two main characters but the movie as it is is actually being a pretty straightforward one with its story. What you see is what you are going to get and you shouldn't expect anything surprising or truly mind blowing of it.
That's the most disappointing aspect about this movie. Every time you are starting to believe that it's going to develop into something truly tense and original, it just stops and continues to do absolutely nothing. Watching Malin Akerman punching in a bunch of different random numbers is about the most exciting thing that this movie has to offer you. It doesn't elaborate enough on things and it never builds up toward any sort of all revealing or tense climax. This is also because of the movie its villains, who are hardly in it at all and their motives are never made fully clear. The whole movie you are trying to figure it what it is that these guys want exactly from our two main characters. You are waiting for answers, that this movie just never provides.
No, it's not like this is the worst of most boring movie you could ever watch. It luckily mostly is too short for that and the movie as it is still remains a good looking one. Technically not an awful lot wrong with this movie. It has decent cinematography, editing and action in it, as well as some pretty good actors. It's also definitely a watchable enough movie but it starts to run out of steam, before it even reaches the hour mark. By the end of it, there is also just absolutely no way that you could say that this is a very good movie, that surprised or impressed you.
Not the worst movie you could watch but you're definitely still better off skipping it.
It's clear that not all movies are made to impress but some are just
made to entertain. And this movie most definitely does not impress but
luckily it still is being an entertaining enough little action flick to
consider this movie to be a good and watchable enough one.
There are several problems with "Stolen", one being that the movie
isn't being anything original to watch, making this a standard and
mediocre movie, basically all the way through. You could say this movie
is like being a combination of many different genre movies, while the
movie itself is coming up with very little original of its own. Also
funny how in some ways this movie subtly references to "Con Air",
another action movie director Simon West and actor Nicolas Cage did
together, prior to this film.
It's being an action movie with a significantly lower budget though,
when comparing it to "Con Air". And this also truly shows in this
movie. Really nothing all that spectacular happens in it and it mostly
consists out of a bunch of formulaic shot car chases and the occasional
gun- and fist fight. But please, don't watch this movie expecting it to
provide you with big explosions and mind blowing stunts. It's
definitely being a somewhat 'smaller' action flick, that also should
had felt as a more personal and involving one.
That's another problem; you just don't ever care for any of the
characters or what happens in its story. After all, you basically
already know how everything shall progress and eventually end.
The story is just being a bit too simple and also too straightforward
at times. It seemed as if the movie was trying to add some more
dimensions to the story and get some more characters involved but it
never really works out. Actors such as Danny Huston and Malin Akerman
for instance are absolutely wasted in the movie and are given far too
little to do to truly make an impact on its story. It seems that the
movie was holding back and somewhat reluctant and preferred to take the
safe and more standard approach to things, wasting every opportunity to
make this a more original and also a more impressive and entertaining
movie to watch.
But the movie its story was lacking more. It isn't always taking the
most sensible approach to things and it often could had gotten to its
point way sooner. It for instance takes far too long for the Nicolas
Cage character to finally come up with a plan and starts executing it,
making it almost feel like an afterthought and as a way to wrap things
up quickly. Sometimes it really has some pacing issues; the one moment
it takes the movie to long to make a point or allowing its action to
kick in and the other it's coming too its point to early wand wraps
certain things up too quickly.
It perhaps is also true it could had used a stronger villain in it.
Josh Lucas is mostly just silly looking in this and doesn't ever come
across as psychotic or threatening enough. But again, this also for
some part might be due to it that the movie has a predictable story,
that also progresses in a standard and formulaic way and you already
know in advance how things are going to end. So perhaps it's not fair
to put all the blame on just Lucas.
But really, these are all reasons why "Stolen" just isn't a perfect or
even great movie to watch. Other than that, it remains a perfectly
watchable one. It's not boring, it's not offensive, it's never truly
bad. It's basically being just like most other 'low' budget modern
action flicks, that take very little risks but still provide plenty of
entertainment and also action to please the genre fans.
This is an offensively bad movie or one that constantly annoyed me but there is just absolutely nothing about it that stands out or ever works out as anything truly great or hilarious.
No, I really didn't get any laughs out of this movie, expect for the very random Ray Liotta cameo. For some reason Ray Liotta cameo's always make me laugh. But other than that, the movie is offering far too little laughs. It's all quite predictable and besides its moments often go on for far too long.
Same goes for the entire movie. It just goes on and on, without making a clear point about anything. Seriously, the movie for the longest time is going absolutely nowhere and I still don't understand why this movie exists. It's one you can very easily do without.
It's also definitely because of its premise that I just see this as a very pointless and a not all that great comedy. I just couldn't buy into its premise of city folks suddenly trying to live in a rural commune. For me there was no good reason why they even tried this and it really doesn't work out as anything convincing. I wish the movie would had done more with its story and characters, to at least make the movie a bit more amusing to watch.
I honestly really like Paul Rudd but if he like him or any of the other actors in this movie, this is still not a good reason to go and see this movie. The material they all had to work what was just too weak and not all of the jokes seem to have been thought through thoroughly enough, probably because most of the movie its jokes came from the actor's improvising on the spot.
Definitely not worth seeing, though it remains far from the worst stuff the genre has to offer.
