‘Abstraction’ DVD Review

When not only the very first scene but the very first shot in a film contains unnecessary nudity, it doesn’t exactly instill confidence that a brilliant and captivating plot is soon to follow. Sure, it could happen, but it’s about as likely as a sequel to I, Frankenstein. Also, when the director is a former magician named Prince, you know you’re really in trouble.

So, here’s the setup: In the nondescript mountain state of Colotana, low-level thugs Tommy and Gary do thuggish things—mostly just armed robbery. Gary (Richard Manriquez) is the irritable sidekick and Tommy is the gangster with a heart of gold, played by Hunter Ives of the ironically-bad-on-purpose-but-actually-just-bad Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus. That’s right, I just mentioned Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus. Anyone still here? I’ll keep going anyway.

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Anyhoo, Tommy and Gary launch a bumbling assault on a car shop so Eric Roberts can appear for the five minutes required for him to be featured on the DVD cover and never be seen again. This is also the case later on with Ken Davitian (the large fellow you’ll remember from the nightmarish nude-fight in Borat). As Tommy and Gary aren’t very good at their job, it doesn’t end well and they decide to lay low following the aftermath, which for Gary means starring in awkward sex scenes and for Tommy means hitting on random women in podunk pancake shacks.

Tommy charms Scarlet (Korrina Rico) with the lure of blueberry pancakes and a scene or two later they’re an item. We didn’t even get a courtship montage! If only I knew the secret to speedy wooing was blueberry pancakes, my college years might’ve been much less lonely and depressing. Scarlet catches on to Tommy’s shady backstory and is not only okay with it but offers up an opportunity for him and his loose canon buddy to pinch a half a million dollar painting. End setup.

So, does Abstraction deliver a brilliant and captivating plot? Nope. Though, it sure tries its best and I’ll give it an A for effort. Everything else gets a straight C, I’m afraid.

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See, one of the worst things a movie can do is be perfectly mediocre and thusly perfectly dull. Most of the actors deliver acceptable performances and The Director Formerly Known as Prince keeps the cast without acting chops to a minimum, but no one truly shines or stinks. The plot doesn’t even start to approach interesting until the final twenty minutes and there’s absolutely nothing to say of the score.

Indeed, not much leaps out as particularly offensive or particularly impressive here. However, the screener I was provided was a lossy encode overrun with compression artifacts. Why is a mystery considering there wasn’t anything else I’m aware of burned to the disk aside from the film. I really can’t venture a guess as to why the file size needed to be crunched to oblivion. I sincerely hope the official release doesn’t look anything like this or someone needs a stern talking to.

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I think should have been called Extraction. My reasoning being it’s made from the extract of far better movies. Though, the extract is so compressed, all the flavor’s been squeezed out. It has become the bland aftertaste that comes from cheap store brand imitations.

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To be more direct, Abstraction isn’t a good film. It’s not a particularly bad film, either. It’s just sort of…on your screen…until it isn’t. I really can’t recommend it when there are so many better heist movies out there to watch. Hell, I would even recommend watching worse ones because they might at least provide some chuckles.

Now, to enjoy something that’s unquestionably good—blueberry pancakes.

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