Abandon ** (2002, Katie Holmes, Charlie Hunnam, Benjamin Bratt, Zooey Deschanel, Gabrielle Union) – Classic Movie Review 11,442

The 2002 psychological thriller Abandon stars Katie Holmes, Charlie Hunnam, Benjamin Bratt, Zooey Deschanel and Gabrielle Union, and is written and directed by Stephen Gaghan in his directorial debut, loosely based on the novel Adams Fall by Sean Desmond.

Benjamin Bratt plays a police detective, Detective Wade Handler, a recovering alcoholic who reopens the police investigation into the disappearance two years previously of student Embry Larkin (Charlie Hunnam), the boyfriend of stressed-out senior college student Katie Burke (Katie Holmes), a girl with severe problems about abandonment. Then Katie begins to see Embry lurking around campus, seemingly stalking her, though Detective Handler believes Embry is dead.

The good cast makes this moderate, fairly low-voltage psychological thriller seem better and more involving than its regulation plot suggests. The mystery is pretty unsurprising, though, leading to a lack of the required tension.

In the tremendous support cast are Mark Feuerstein, Fred Ward, Melanie Lynskey, Philip Bosco, Gabriel Mann, Will McCormack, Greg Kramer, Gillian Ferrabee, Barry Julien, and Tony Goldwyn.

Though set at an American university, much of the movie was filmed in Canada at McGill University’s McConnell Hall.

It cost quite a lot at $25 million, and took quite a little at $12.3 million.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,442

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