Stolen

By Ashley Hillard

If you’re looking for a film about child abduction / murder to watch (not that you would be – Ed), hunt down ”The Lovely Bones” or ”The Changeling”.

From first time director Anders Anderson comes “Stolen”, a movie so substandard it really should’ve had it’s premiere on the small screen.

The film, starring Jon Hamm (”Mad Men”) and Josh Lucas (”Sweet Home Alabama”) as father’s whose children have gone missing in different decades, features an interesting premise that might otherwise have worked in a more skilled director’s hands.

The story jumps back and forth as Tom Adkins Sr. (Hamm), a man whose own child is missing, tries to figure out who put the body of a boy in a box at a construction site.

James Van Der Beek plays a suspicious chap whose purportedly involved in both of the missing children cases at the center of the film.

…. and there won’t be anyone in the theatre unable to guess who the killer is.

The film has a terrific cast, but unfortunately the poor plotting overshadows the interesting performances Van Der Beek, Lucas and young Jimmy Bennett give in the film.

Maybe if the story had taken place in a singular decade, rather than jumping back and forward between the two, “Stolen” might have worked as a movie. In it’s current form it’s merely a predictable, seen-it-all-before thriller that does as much to waist the audience’s time as it does some of our finest actors.