By Geno McGahee
I’m a huge Nicolas Cage fan, but he hasn’t been knocking them out of the park lately. His movie run reminds me of Steven Seagals. They began with a string of great movies and then make these straight to videos mediocrities and using the term “mediocrities” is being kind. In STOLEN, we have a straight to video TAKEN-style film with Cage in the lead.
Will Montgomery (Cage) is a thief that steals 10 million dollars with his group of criminal friends, but after a disagreement with fellow thief Vincent (Josh Lucas), the money is lost and Montgomery is locked up. After 8 years, Cage (I’m going to call him Cage from now on) is released and is ready to reconnect with his young daughter, Alison (Sami Gayle), but it doesn’t go well. Alison isn’t too happy with her dad, but when she is kidnapped, she can only rely on him to save her.
Vincent returns a beaten man and nabs Alison and holds her in the trunk of his cab for 10 million dollars that he assumes Cage still has, but he doesn’t. He burned the money and must now figure out a way to get his daughter back. It soon becomes a race against the clock and Cage must avoid the FBI that is on his tail and desperately want to put him behind bars again. Cage was too elusive and intelligent and makes it to a final showdown with Vincent with his daughter’s life hanging in the balance.
STOLEN has a good cast, but the movie is pretty piss poor. Cage does his best to keep the movie afloat with his Cage Rage, but there just isn’t much to this movie. They had the idea to capitalize on the TAKEN success with a similar story, but this film was really beneath Cage, but then again, his recent run may make that statement debatable. It just sucks to see guys like Cage and Steven Seagal do shitty movies when they still have enough left in the tank to produce something of quality and restart their careers. STOLEN is forgettable. Take it or leave it.
Rating: 4.5/10
