Abandon  

Review: written 2004

Katie Holmes in sub-standard thriller

Katie Holmes looked at one point that she was poised for stardom, with those perennially girlish looks and lop sided pout. However, if she keeps up this sort of effort, she will soon be doomed to straight to video shelves for the rest of her career. This movie aims for off kilter edgy psychological thrills - 'what is really going on' paranoia. But in the end, what it actually achieves is boredom and 'who really cares' apathy.

The story revolves around a colege student preparing for her thesis. She starts having memories surface of her boyfriend, who disappeared strangely 2 years ago, when an ex alcoholic detective is sent to investigate his disappearance. The investigation leads to her seeing the ex boyfriend again. The tension revolves around the uncertainty of whether what she is seeing is real or not. It's not really a bad movie; the director uses various time dislocation tricks to put the audience off kilter, and Holmes fans will enjoy - just don’t expect excitement, or any real tension from a thriller which is labelled as exciting and tense.