Film Review: Stolen
Stolen reunites Nicolas Cage with director Simon West – the man who turned Cage into one of Hollywood’s most unlikely action heros in 1997’s Con-Air. That’s where the similarity ends, as Stolen is a fairly conventional (though unremarkable) action thriller, though Cage’s presence offers its usual ‘unique’ qualities.
Stolen starts off as a heist movie, but soon gives way to a kidnapping/’Simon-says’ movie – not too far from Die Hard With A Vengeance or Phone Booth – as former thief Will Montgomery (Cage) is required to jump through hoops for a madman on the other end of his mobile phone (Josh Lucas). All to save the life of Montgomery’s teenage daughter (played by Sami Gayle).
Nicolas Cage is an actor quite capable of giving a good performance. Over the last decade though, he’s focused that talent on remarkably throwaway action/adventure yarns. Here, he plays a typical heroic lead (albeit a father), who’s always several steps ahead of the FBI agents on his tail. Cage is running on half speed for much of the film, but he’s still infinitely more watchable than many of his contemporaries that could have easily filled his shoes here.
Stolen is set in New Orleans and West makes good use of the location – though there’s no effort to dispel the Hollywood stereotype that there’s a Mardi Gras happening every day of the week. Still, it’s a nice change for this kind of movie to not be set in New York or LA and at no time does it feel like another city dressed to look like New Orleans.
Overall, Stolen is entertaining. The 90 minutes pass at a decent pace, with action that is frantic yet considered. There are no messy subplots to get in the way of a very practical story. It’s a film that actually harkens back to a simpler era of action-thrillers from the early 90s (Point Break, Speed) – a solid, saturday-night popcorn flick that requires no extra brain power from the audience.
Nonetheless, there are a few faults. Particularly Mark Isham’s soundtrack, which jars quite heavily with the relative gloss of West’s direction. Isham uses a somewhat twee, 1930’s gangster-sounding melody throughout much of the film. It dispels any sense of drama from the scenes under which it plays and it doesn’t help that it is played through a synthesizer. This gives it a bizarre electronic-meets-vintage feel that just doesn’t work. It’s distracting and removes any sense of seriousness or tension from some key scenes.
The casting also falls down to some degree. The FBI agents (played by Danny Huston and Mark Valley) are reasonable foils to Montgomery, but Malin Akerman’s character seems to exist for no other reason than needing an extra female character. Meanwhile, Josh Lucas is far too handsome to play the dishevelled waster that antagonizes Montgomery throughout.
Regardless of these faults, Stolen is nonetheless a well-paced (though simple) action thriller – with the right twists and turns. It’s an acceptable piece of popcorn fun that makes good use of its 90 minutes without requiring too much from the audience.