I will always love Nicolas Cage, but the inert Stolen is too mediocre for even an avowed Cage fan such as myself to embrace. The central storyline (just out of prison, a master thief must contend with his former partner, a live-wire psychopath who believes he is owed a cut of a failed heist) is action-movie suitable, but flatfooted direction by the once admirable Simon West counteracts the generation of suspense, and the awful writing verges on the spectacular (a detective predicts the protagonist will retire to an island and listen to bands "with muscular guitars and dead drummers"). Cage's tax-debt-motivated disinterest is crystal clear from frame one, and this is an actor who can breathe energetic or even psychedelic life into most roles, however thin. This type of film should play as realistic and straightforward or go over-the-top to colorful max. Stolen tries to have it both ways; certain creative decisions, including the decision to cast Malin Akerman as a hardened criminal, are absurd in nature, but the action remains grounded and restrained, rendering the final result a generic failure.

C-

Stolen

It's an ok movie, with some humourous dialogue throughout [in a devilish sort of way], but the last 30 minutes REALLY pulls down the quality. Everything is rushed in that last half an hour and it becomes a movie of action movie convenience instead of action movie logic. Cage isn't particularly good in this either, although he does a lot of running. Nobody's great in this actually.

I liked how Cage and his gang listen to CCR before doing a job (which I think is a nod to The Expendables), and Josh Lucas has some of the best lines in the movie. It was great to see MC Gainey back in movies again (not seen him for a while) - I guess him and Cage have remained friends from Con Air.

[1] The last 30 minutes is really kind of shite; $100m of gold is sitting in a bank vault. Do you want to have it? Ok, well all you have to do is go under the bank via the access tunnel, get a hot rod and burn through the layers of cement and the gold will melt into water and cool instantly, then you pick it up, put it in a bag and leave the premises. It's not heavy either, it's only gold. A guy like Nic Cage can carry that with one arm. Then you put it in your van and flee. Let's not forget too, that Cage and his woman friend had about 10 minutes to plan this "job". He said about planning it in prison, but that's BS - he could only ever have had "the idea" in prison. Planning of this magnitude takes blueprints, schematics, weeks of preparation and a thorough team to case the joint. He planned (in 10 mins) to divert the cops with a dummy man, he planned that gold would melt at a certain temperature, he planned times, destinations, everything. Oh, also, he just guesstimates that it's enough gold to pay his debt of $10m. Nic Cage is one clever guy in this.

[2] You're a cop. You want to find these gold thieves. Where do you check? Well, check the last destinations of the taxi cab that your enemy has been to the last few weeks. Then just pick one at random and send a helicopter there on a hunch. Excellent police work - give a medal to the guy with the 1950s hat!

A fight ensues and the bad guy is dead at the bottom of the lake. Nic Cage is stabbed in the stomach, but still manages to drive a car and fight in the water and rescue his daughter. $300,000 of the $10m stolen gold is missing, though. What to do?...

[3] You're that same cop. A few months later you are watching Cage with the surplus gold. He throws it into the water to fool you. What do you do? Well, this cop just believes that Cage threw it into the water. He didn't search his house, or truck, or anything, just believes him. It seems the FBI consists of two guys, one guy that is happy for Cage to rob banks and the other than isn't hapy for that to happen but is a lower rank and just has to shut up about it.

Above are the three reasons that the last 30 minutes of the movie dragged it down into a bad movie. Shame really because it had a chance to be a great heist-chase movie. You have to suspend your disbelief somewhat with movies like this, and I'm very well prepared to do that, but it's just laughable at how bad it gets. I was on board for a fun ride for about an hour, but it lost me with its shoddy script developments. Simon West has really gone downhill since Con Air (apart from The Mechanic which I thought was great). I think Simon West is quite an incompetent director actually. Stolen was shot well - better than The Expendables 2. I can't understand why he didn't shoot TE2 with the same precision and clearness of shots. That being said, the editing in this is not great. Oh, and does every film have to be set in New Orleans now? TE2, Stolen, The Mechanic...Simon West has a fetish with the area.

Last point; the rift in the main theme for the movie reminded me so much of the Spy Kids 3D music. It's identical, I swear.

C

I read Cage convinced Simon West to film this in Louisiana. I believe it is where Cage lives most of the time now, so this was a super convenient shoot. Seeking Justice is also set in New Orleans. I am not a huge fan of the city as an action-film location. I am not sure why... It just seems cheesy. I would rather see Cage and Statham kicking ass in high-tech Michael-Mann-vision Los Angeles than meeting in old "cool-cat" jazz clubs in the French Quarter.

Anywho, yes, the gold heist is such B.S., lol. I might forgive it if the whole film played on a Con Air/Shoot 'Em Up level of heightened action absurdity, but the film is otherwise fairly grounded; not realistic, but simple in a run-here-run-there type way.

The music here is hilarious. Often this type of film will just have a functional, tense score. Here, I found the main theme downright distracting. It reminds me of a '70s cop show.

Also, there should be more interaction between Josh Lucas' character and the daughter. This dynamic could have resulted in so much more suspense.

Ah, yes, forgot about that. That's also why he made Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. But that film's amazing. I agree with you that Louisiana isn't great, but it's cheap, so they go there. That being said, it was a good location for some movies like Hard Target, it worked really well. I suppose it depends on the movie. The Tomb is partially set there too, so we'll see how that turns out. I disgaree that more action-thrillers should be made in LA - not because I dislike it - but because in my mind it's reserved for Mann films.