'The Abducted' is saved by its stars

The Abducted (aka "Match.Dead") (2011)
Starring: James Ray, Kathleen Benner, and Michael Harrelson
Director: Jon Bonnell
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

A serial killer (Ray) abducts a young woman (Benner) he met through an online dating site. After deciding he loves her, he forgoes his usual habit of murder, and he tries to win her affection through violence and terrifying mind games. Will she escape, or will she end up as just another victim?

"The Abducted" is a movie that's elevated by a actors that ALMOST manage to transcend the weakness of the material the are working with. The idea behind the film is an interesting one--it takes the basic framework of the countless torture porn movies that have been spewed forth into the direct-to-DVD market and onto the big screen since the surprise hit "Saw" but uses it for a psychological thriller instead of a disgusting sadistic gore-fest--but the execution is lacking.

The biggest flaw with the film is that we never get any insight into the film's villain, Ridley, and why he does what he does. Nor do we ever gain an understanding of the tortured heroine, Valora, even if we get several flashbacks to her childhood, which the writer and director presumably felt would explain why she was able fight her abductor and why he saw a kindred spirit in her. Because the villain and the heroine both remain unknowns to us, much of the potential emotional of the film never materializes. The battle of wills between the two characters feels a bit hollow and even the murder of the girl's grandfather feels like nothing more than a badly motivated excuse for some splatter and melodrama, because we know even less about the grandfather than we do the heroine.

While it's good for a movie to hit the ground running, it would have been nice if there would have been a little more set-up of the characters in this film. Specifically, how the main characters met, and why someone who seems as appealing and strong-minded as the kidnap victim had to resort to online dating to find love? All this could have been accomplished with just a few minutes at the beginning, perhaps even showing the two characters meeting after their online connection. (All the promotional material for the film references online dating and the initial meeting of the two main characters, so I wonder that material never made it into the movie.)

More background on the main characters would also have helped make the ending seem more satisfying, because as it stands Valora's transformation is very, very lame. (The ending also made me wonder: Why do so many action and horror films end with the villains getting killed? In so many movies, it would be a far worse punishment for the bad guy to go through the humiliation of trial and imprisonment. Death is the easy way out. It most cases, the justice isn't even poetic, nor barely even justice.)

It's a shame the script here ins't stronger, because James Ray and Kathleen Benner both give fine performances, and they each have enough charisma together and apart to carry the film despite its flaws. This is the second time I've seen Ray play an unpleasant bad-ass (the other time being in "Fable", a film which also happened to feature Benner in a small part), and I think he if all goes well for him he might find himself a prominent spot in the pantheon of cinematic heavies.

"The Abducted" will see wide release on DVD on March 7. My thanks to the good folks at Brain Damage Films for supplying me with an advanced copy.

I wish I liked 'Fable' more than I do

Fable: Teeth of the Beast (2010)
Starring: Melantha Blackthorne, Tara Alexis, Dale Denton, James Ray, Raw Leiba, and Fiona Horn
Director: Sean-Michael Argo
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

What starts as a simple assignment to break up an illegal Quiji Board smuggling ring, brings the City of Fable's top freelance trouble-shooter (Blackthorne) into conflict with a demon planning to destroy the hidden city and shred the veil between the magical world and the modern one.

"Fable: Teeth of the Beasts" is a film I really wanted to like. The press release included with the screener the publicity rep kindly sent me caused me to put the film near the top of my review stack. It's basic concept is one that I love--a dark fantasy movie set in a pseudo-modern environment. It's the sort sort of story part of me wishes I would force myself to do.

Which is why I wish I liked this movie more than I do, because I love genre mash-ups and there are things to like about "Fable".

Lead Malentha Blackthorne does a good job as the magical bounty hunter with a troubled past, and Dale Denton is one heck of a scary demon underneath some strange, anvil-jawed make-up. The use of digital blood-spatter, sparks, and muzzle flashes is far more adeptly used here than in films made with budgets of many hundreds more than what was spent here--like The Expendables and Machete. It's great to see a low-budget film show up the big boys like that.

The script by Matt Yaeger (from a story by Argo) is just about perfect, striking the right balance between a hardboiled detective/action film tone, an R.E. Howard vibe, and a Tolkien Universe gone seriously bad. So as far as that goes, I like this film for all the same reasons I liked the other Argo/Yaeger collaboration I've watched and reviewed, 'Johnny Sunshine', which was a genre mash-up of cyberpunk and zombie movies. I will probably watch and review any other film by them I come across, because I think they are both talented writers and directors, and I hope that they'll get it right eventually.

Argo also leads with a bit of filmmaking that I first thought boded ill but which turned out to be one of the cleverest things he did. Some scenes use "digital sets," mostly in the film's beginning, in a clever reversal of what is expected; actors in the "real world" are placed in digitally generated streets that lend a phony look to the action, while the "fantasy world" is all gritty and real. It's the opposite of what was done in "Despiser" and it's a great touch.

Much as I liked "Fable" for some of the reasons I liked "Johnny Sunshine", the film has some of the same problems, attributable in both films to inexperience of directors and cinematographers. Once again, this is a film with numerous fight scenes that not only feel under-rehearsed, but they are badly photographed, with camera placements far from optimal. I'm also not sure Argo has a feel for creating cinematic fight scenes... his editor certainly didn't!

But these technical complaints are dwarfed by the film's gigantic, insurmountable problem: That this is that it never should have been made. Or at least not made in the way it was here, because it is a movie that required a far bigger budget than what the filmmakers had to work with here.

"Fable" has at its foundation a script that would have made a great Japanese cartoon (or anime, for those of you who feel you're too grown-up to be watching cartoons). Its main character is a sexy babe who kicks ass with magic and guns. She exists in a world that is supposedly full of legendary magical creatures and demons where she is disliked just as much by the creatures she fights as by the Powers That Be. Heck, even the way the dialogue is delivered and the pacing of the film reminded me of anime. But animation is far more costly than the price of getting a few actors and a small technical crew together in a building slated for demolition (or some similar site).

And getting those actors together is a good fallback position, assuming you have the budget for great costumes and/or creature effects to populate the City of Fable with minotaurs, winged fairies, weird creatures flying through the air or perching on stools at the local bar, and all sorts of other visual madness. Or at the very least SOME costumes and creature effects aside from the single demon that is the film's main bad guy. Because one single actor in heavy make-up doesn't do the supposed realm where all magic and magical beings retreated to when humans and their Reason and Logic started taking hold and shaping Reality. All that does demonstrate the vast missed opportunities and squandered potential that this film represents.

"Fable" is a movie I hope gets a remake someday--a hope held in vain, because no one ever remakes movies because they need to be remade. Or maybe the script could be adapted to a graphic novel format, because it would make a great comic book as well. But this is not good movie, no matter how much I wanted it to be. It really is only of interest to those who are absolutely fanatical in their love of urban fantasy, and who must see or read everything that appears in that genre.

Here's hoping there'll be a third outing for Argo and Yaeger... and that the third time will indeed be the charm!