the audience applauded

Best movie ever!

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The second collaboration between Actor Nicolas Cage and Director Simon West turns out to be a disaster of an action movie. Technically well crafted in splendid-executed, but cut to pieces, camera movements are accompanied with a main character on a rampage tour through New Orleans to rescue his estranged daughter out of the claws of a former brother in crime, who has not found his reason in life with no given edge what so ever.Entirely left alone by director Simon West with the character of Will Montgomery, actor Nicolas Cage can not get any access to the emotional state of the protagonist, who faces personified monster in shape of the derailed character of Vincent, who had been completed miscast with Josh Lucas, who plays the same beats since given the antagonist Talbot in Ang Lee's version of "Hulk" (2003). No make-up effect could hide the fact that final confrontation between Vincent and Will at an abandoned amusement park sight at night, on the one side was not properly build up by the director to create any thrills, even though the script by David Guggenheim had the potential to be a massive close to fright night horror screamer, when Will Montgomery has to overthrow his inner demon to retrieve his daughter; on the other side the non-tension-given chemistry between Nic Cage and Josh Lucas plus an editorial, which shies away of holding shots, giving in to an inrythmic pulp of selective undirected shots passes on any suspense.Two to three more cut-short action scenes after an at least technical promising opening sequence felt uninspired at lost in an so-called original script, which has been filled with genre hits anecdotes from Michael Mann's "Thief" (1981) to "Taken" (2008) directed by Pierre Morel. Probably realizing half-way through the mid-way expensive production of 30 Million U.S. Dollar that finished picture product had been released approximately six years too late to make its mark in Zeitgeist cinema, director Simon West took another 2 1/2 years to realize his follow-up movie "Wild Card", starring Jason Statham, which improved the director's portfolio to this day, nevertheless the picture could not create the visceral velocity of arguably Simon West's best movie to this day the remake of 1972 Charles-Bronson-Driven Thriller "The Mechanic" (2011).After "Stolen" for actor Nicolas Cage started a long seemingly dragging streak of mediocre picture streak, in search of the part to challenge his hard-to-catch gift between gentle empathy and brute force, which in recent years arguably came closest to fulfillment on a larger scale, than David Gordon Green's overrated motion picture "Joe" (2013), in Scott Walker's directorial debut "The Frozen Ground" (2013), which has become worth a revisiting.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

Nicolas Cage stars in this action/crime thriller as Will Montgomery, a professional thief, who comes out of "retirement" when he learns of his daughter's kidnapping, and the only way to get her back is to steal $10m for a ransom.To be honest, the first movie I thought of when watching Stolen was Taken. From the quick description above it may not seem like it and, yes, a couple of details here and there are slightly different obviously, but as you watch it, it really is the same kind of movie - dad's daughter gets kidnapped...dad goes to get her back....dad kills villains who kidnapped daughter.The movie does start off pretty well, and does enough in the first 20 - 30 minutes to keep you watching, but unfortunately it starts falling away after the promising start and struggles to really get going again. Don't get me wrong - it doesn't slow down to a complete crawl, and it does have a few good tense moments and action scenes, but it just tends to get a wee bit boring for the most part. For this type of movie, I was hoping for cat-and-mouse but unfortunately got a tortoise and a snail.All in all, Stolen is not TOO bad of a movie but it is most definitely nowhere near one of Nicolas Cage's best either.

Great movie? Nah... Fun to watch just the same? yea! Here's what it comes down to.. do you like Nick Cage? If you do, watch the movie, you'll enjoy it. Beats an a couple hours of work. Don't like Nick Cage, than I'd pass.I actually found a few of the scenes, especially in the beginning, very engaging and exciting. The dialog could use some serious help, but if you can overlook this, it's not a horrible way to spend an 1.5hrs.I've seen a lot worse with much higher ratings here on IMDb.COM.If you're looking for a fun to watch action film with one of Hollywood's A-listers, look no further.

Nicholas Cage is a master mind bank robber who retires after getting caught, but is forced to turn back to a life of crime to get back his daughter who has been kidnapped by his nutty ex pal.Now as the main character is a criminal master mind you may expect him to embark on a devious scheme to rob the ransom money. Wrong.Cage spends the majority of the movie trying to get his daughter back through direct means i.e. crashing cars and elbowing people in the face.When he finally decides to try stealing the money, the ingenuity of his plan is one step up from punching the bank teller out and legging it with a bundle of cash.Very silly, immensely dull, the characters are stupidly over the top. Malin Akerman is the only one of the cast who does their job well - and all she had to do was look good in tight jeans.