By Ralph Santini - **
After noted screenwriter Stephen Gaghan won his Oscar® for Best Adapted Screenplay of the 2000 drama Traffic, he decided to do some directorial work of his own. And that first project is a psychological dramatic thriller called Abandon. At the time the movie was released I was really obsessed with taking a look at celebrity gossip by watching tv, reading magazines, etc. and when I first saw the TV spot of the film I was amazed at Katie Holmes having a starring in role in that film. I then knew miss Holmes as romantic lead in The WB prime time soap “Dawson’s Creek” and that show had plenty of attractive press when it was first aired. After all I was only an undiscriminating teenager back then and I wanted to know plenty much about Generation-X celebrities especially according to teen oriented magazines I was reading at time like Seventeen or Teen People. However having social difficulties at the time, I never got the chance to see it in theatres because I was already in High School trying to adapt new waves of study.
Anyhow I finally got the chance to see it as an adult, and by then I have already outgrown by obsession with gossip after studying film criticism in college even though I majored in History through Humanities. With my looking the film with my critical eye I felt that the result of “Abandon” is a gloomy whodunit with some paranormal traits that I could not get whatsoever failing to see the impact of it. The story is basically Holmes cast as a senior college student named Katie Burke who needs to struggle with emotional stress by completing a thesis and being able to make it in in a rigid job interview process. However she is about to be questioned by a recovering alcoholic police investigator Wade Handler (Benjamin Bratt who could have promised a lot better himself) about a reopened case concerning her old boyfriend Embry Larkin (Charlie Hunnam, from what I can see being stuck in a script with some mediocre dialogue he was unfortunately given) who is apparently declared as missing. When that happens, she seems to be witnessing his return to the college starting in a party she goes with her friends.
However the film not only focuses on Katie Burke feeling that Embry is coming back to her but also tells some troubled past she had with her deceased father. Anyway back to the main focus, Burke suddenly gets a bad feeling that Embry is actually chasing her and wants to get even with her after his disappearance. When the story keeps on going, Detective Handler keeps on with his research of the Larkin disappearance case and eventually him and Katie develop a certain relationship which can sometimes get the case his mind off duty. Not trying to give away certain spoilers we can sometimes suspect that Katie may be having a premonition when it comes to her being stalked by Embry.
My overall impression with “Abandon” is that although I admire how dark the movie is, it’s paranormal traits don’t seem to be very effective because in my opinion they don’t make intelligible sense. Katie Holmes performance is somewhat perplexed and I think she seems rather unfocused in her starring role here. Benjamin Bratt seems to be recycling his performance in some of the seasons of Law And Order he appeared and I couldn’t see much chemistry with him and Katie. Worst of all, Charlie Hunnam seems rather hammy as Embry Larkin and his “villain” role doesn’t seem very effective. I even find the storyline of this film rather intricate because of the effects of the unimpressive paranormal material that I can’t get. It’s just cliched mystery with a mediocre screenplay that Stephen Gaghan did not deserve to be involved.
