The Movie:

Directed by Simon West, 2012's Stolen stars Nicholas Cage as Will Montgomery who, along with his pal, Vincent (Josh Lucas), joins up with Riley (Malin Akerman) and Reginald (M.C. Gainey) to pull off a robbery big enough to let them live the good life. Unfortunately when Detective Harlend (Danny Huston) gets word of what's going down, he busts Will, the other three men make it out of there in time. This lands Will eight years in prison which gives his daughter Alison (Sami Gayle) plenty of time to grow into a young woman without him. When he is let out after doing his time, he wants nothing more than to reunite with her but things get complicated when Vincent shows up seemingly out of nowhere and kidnaps Alison.

Vincent thinks that Will still has the ten million dollar in missing cash from the botched robbery - hence the kidnapping plan. The problem here is that Will doesn't have the money, he burned it on hopes of skipping out on doing time. Vincent isn't having any of it, however: he's given Will twelve hours to find the money or he'll murder Alison. So with that laid on the line, Will finds himself in a race against time on the streets of New Orleans during the chaos of Mardi Gras and the only person who might be able to help him is Harlend... only he doesn't believe him.

Remarkable primarily for how completely by the numbers it is, Stolen is the very embodiment of a disposable, cliché ridden thriller. Cage pretty much sleepwalks through this movie, which is a shame as had he delivered one of his more manic turns (think Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans) the movie might have at least been entertaining enough. Instead, it's bland. Completely bland. He does alright in the fight scenes and occasionally appears to be trying to rise to the occasion but these moments are few and far between, making us yearn for 'crazy Cage' if only to find something here to hold our interest. Sadly, it never happens, and if Cage is bored, so too are the rest of the cast. Josh Lucas invests nothing into his role and plays things up a little too much, cruising around The Big Easy in a goofy looking wig and never once convincing us. Sami Gayle is cute enough and not bad in her role but really not given a whole lot to do.

The script, written David Guggenhem, borrows more than a few ideas from Taken but the movie lacks that film's intensity and Cage can't compete with the awesomeness that Liam Neeson brought to that movie. There also isn't a whole lot of concern here for realism, plausibility or believability. Stuff just sort of happens because it would be cool to have it happen, there's no logical flow to the chain of events that transpire in this movie - you could mix up the different set pieces into pretty much any order you'd like without hurting the finished product.

As far as the direction goes, West manages to pace the movie well enough but when it's all as predictable as it is here, you can't really care so much. A few decent action scenes can't make up for the complete lack of originality and creativity here, though in all fairness, a couple of cool car chase scenes add some mild excitement to the movie. The scenery is nice and there are fairly decent production values evident throughout the movie. The New Orleans back drop is at least mildly exotic enough that we're given something to look at in the background as the cast and crew all go through the motions.

Video:

Stolen arrives on Blu-ray in its original aspect ratio of 2.35.1 widescreen in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer that looks just fine. Colors are nicely reproduced and black levels look pretty solid throughout. Skin tones look nice and natural and there are no problems with compression artifacts or heavy edge enhancement. There aren't any issues with print damage, dirt or debris of any kind and detail and texture are pretty nice throughout.