Stolen Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		2.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.5

Stolen Blu-ray Movie Review

A cinematic Hamm and cheese sandwich, heavy on the cheese.

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater June 11, 2010

Since the premiere of Mad Men, I’ve always been a staunch Jon Hamm defender, singing his praises to skeptics who call him “wooden” and “lifeless” in his portrayal of advertising executive Don Draper. In short, I think he’s perfect for the character, and I think the character is a perfect embodiment of conflicted post-war masculinity, trying in vain to balance the noble myth of the perfect 1950s nuclear family with work and the new cultural freedoms of the nascent 1960s. That said, before Stolen I had never seen him in anything besides Mad Men, so I was curious how he’d handle playing a contemporary character. The short answer—and no surprise, really —is that he seems like Don Draper transplanted into the 21st century. And, for the most part, it works, although he should probably be a little worried about getting typecast as the archetypal absent dad, married to his job. Unfortunately, Stolen makes poor use of Hamm’s ample, lantern- jawed screen presence, forcing him to slog through a heavy-handed child abduction trauma-drama that often feels more like a made-for-basic-cable production than an independent feature film.

John Hamm, staring off into the distance...

Hamm plays Tom Adkins, a grief-stricken detective who feels guilty about not being able to protect —or solve the case of—his 10-year-old son, who was abducted eight years prior from a 1950s-style diner. He holds out hope that his son is still alive—even keeping the kid’s room perfectly preserved, no one is allowed in—but his wife (Rhona Mitra) just wants to move on. When a boy’s decomposed body is found in a toy box, buried beneath a construction site, they think they may have a conclusive answer. Alas, forensic evidence concludes the boy in the box actually died in the late 1950s, but there are striking—okay, wholly improbable—similarities between the two cases. “Look!,” the film seems to be shouting at us, “the kid in the box has a novelty promotional whistle from the same diner that Tom’s kid was stolen from! What are the odds?” In the realm of melodramatic child abduction films, it seems, pretty good odds. Purportedly, Stolen is “based on a true story,” but I think we all know how much that often unjustly used phrase is worth nowadays. If the real life incident that inspired the film happened exactly as it does here, it would be a grim miracle of credulity-stretching coincidence.

As Tom grows obsessed over cracking the case of the “Boy in the Box,” as the ever-insensitive media has deemed him, the film flashes between the present and the 1950s, where we’re introduced to the narrative’s second despondent dad. (I kept expecting Michael from Lost to show up as a third, shouting, “They took my boy! WAAAAAALT!”) Glory Road actor Josh Lucas seems somewhat out of place playing Matthew Wakefield, a mid-century, down-on-his-luck rube. The day we meet him, he’s just foreclosed on his home loan—Look! A clever satirical sideswipe at our own bankrupt day and age!—and, his post-partum-ly depressed wife has just hanged herself in their bedroom. Out of work and with no way to take care of his three kids, he drops two of them off at his sister’s and takes the mentally handicapped third—the kid his sis’ husband refuses to take, oh the injustice—out on the road with him while he looks for construction jobs. Obviously, this is our ill-fated box boy, and we spend most of the second half of Stolen waiting for the inevitable kidnapping, smiling and nodding through unlikely happenstance and yawning at misdirects that are never as tension-filled as the film seems to think they are. Meanwhile, in the present, Tom’s marriage unravels, even as he gets closer to finding the killer of both boys. (I won’t, but I’m really tempted to spoil the kiddie-killer’s identity, only because it’s really funny to see this particular actor not-so-convincingly aged to look like an septuagenarian.)

It’s normally bad enough to contend with one soppy, melodramatic storyline, so having two in the same film is a bit much. The twin narratives play out in parallel, and you don't have to be Agathy Christie to solve the dual murders. Seriously, if you haven’t figured out who the killer is by midway through the movie, you’re either a.) not paying attention—and, really, I don’t blame you—or b.) well, not very smart. No offense. My problem isn’t with the obviousness of the mystery, though, it’s with how the film contrives the two stories so they eventually overlap, not just thematically, but literally. I just don’t buy it. If this did actually happen in “real” life—which, I’m sure it didn’t— then, wow, hey, what a head trip, but it doesn’t work in the movies. This isn’t a “truth is stranger than fiction” situation, it’s more of a “let’s take a sliver of truth and spread it impossibly thin over a gracelessly manufactured fiction” scenario. The artificiality of it all is exacerbated by first-timer Anders Anderson’s less-than-deft directorial choices, like casting the 1950s segments in the expected nostalgia-soaked brown hues, or the reliance on creepy objects as clues—a rusty metal toy, a tarnished whistle, a silver dollar found in the pocket of a dead child. Working within these portentous confines, the actors have little choice but to play along, Lucas trying over-earnestly to be a dejected 1950s blue-collar dad, and Hamm going stiff-lipped and doing a lot of staring off into the distance. He’s probably just wondering what he’s doing here.

Stolen Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Stolen arrives on Blu-ray, courtesy of IFC and MPI, with a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer that's noticeably high definition, but wildly inconsistent. The feature was shot on film—check IMDB or just watch the behind-the-scenes featurette—but at times the picture here looks oddly plasticized and video-ish. Sometimes a fine layer of grain hovers over the image—most apparent in the present-day scenes—but often, during the 1950s segments especially, it's clear that DNR has been rigorously applied. Here, fine texture is almost completely obliterated, smoothed over, and given a waxy sheen. The weird thing is that this isn't constant. There are some shots that look naturally filmic, with strong clarity and detail easily apparent on the actors' faces, but then—even within the same scene, even in cuts between characters—the image quality will change drastically. It's strange. Color-wise, the present-day scenes have a cool, bluish cast, while the scenes in the past have been given a very artificial-looking yellow tone, with certain colors—tree greens, for instance—selectively desaturated. Black levels and contrast, however, remain strong and stable for the most part. I did catch a few quirks on the encode—some aliasing on the lines of Jon Hamm's shirt, some shimmer to his three-day stubble, slight banding—but nothing persistent or overly distracting. Overall, I can't say I'm too impressed with the picture quality here.

Stolen Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

While Stolen's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track may not rattle your room and send your head spinning with immersive, channel-crossing effects, it's a solid mix that's much more consistent than the film's disappointing picture quality. There's even an attempt at crafting some creepy impressionistic sound design to accompany the emotional hell these two men find themselves going through. You'll hear a child's disembodied voice singing eerily in the rears, while some slight LFE rumble kicks in and various swishes and swooshes jolt through the soundfield. There's also some occasional ambience, like crickets humming, cars passing through the rears, and the voice of an unseen interviewer coming from the space behind your head as you face Jon Hamm on-screen, effectively making you the one asking the questions. The score is mostly ambient as well, and it has a nice full sound, especially during the more heated moments. Dialogue is balanced well, and I didn't notice any drop-outs, pops, or hisses.

Stolen Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Behind the Scenes (SD, 12:02)
A pretty standard behind the scenes featurette, with on-set footage and EPK interviews with the stars. No words from director Anders Anderson though.

Trailer (1080p, 2:04)
Okay, so don't watch the trailer before watching the film unless you want the whole thing spoiled.

Stolen Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

With its melodramatic, made-for-TV-style premise, Stolen should've stuck with its original title, The Boy in the Box, which sounds like something you'd catch on the Lifetime channel around one in the morning. And unless you like the kind of stuff that plays on the Lifetime channel at one in the morning, you're best off skipping Stolen, a tragedy-riffic drama filled with dead children and depressed dads. If you're still thinking about picking this one up, keep in mind that the picture quality leaves a lot to be desired.