The Abduction Club

So here we go eventually, the beginning of A-Z of Film. The first movie in my collection alphabetically;

The Abduction Club

Date watched- 11th July 2010

Genre; Romantic, Period Drama
Year; 2002
Running Time; 92 minutes
Director; Stefan Schwartz
Written By; Bill Britton and Richard Crawford
Actors; Alice Evans, Daniel Lapaine, Sophia Myles and Matthew Rhys.

Acting 3/5
Keeping my attention 3/4
Visuals/Direction 3/5
Story/Plot 3/6 Total 12/20

Plot

So the story goes something like this; Ireland 1780 where only the eldest sons of affluent families are entitled to their family fortunes while the younger brothers have to take up a profession in the church and earn their own living or marry a woman of fortune, the result, the Abduction Club where a band of younger sons join together to pursue these women of fortune and persuade them into marriage. This movie focuses on two best friends Byrne (Daniel Lapaine) and Strang (Matthew Rhys), both members of the same Abduction Club, romantically pursuing the Kennedy sisters (Alice Evans and Sophia Myles). The abduction takes place of the elder sister, Catherine Kennedy (Evans) where Byrne hopes to convince her to marry him, while Stang ‘accidentally’ abducts the younger sister Anne (Myles); however Catherine is not impressed and refuses Byrne, and the abduction club is forced to disband in order to save its members from imprisonment as the red coats are called to find them all after this abduction occurs. Byrne, Strang and the Kennedy sisters are pursued across Ireland by the rich, ruthless and power hungry Mr Power (who has intentions of his own to marry Anne Kennedy, though Anne can not even stand the sight of Mr Power). Will love blossom between the two couples or will money divide them even further? The ending is a little predictable, but why not?

My Personal Views

I think it’s fair to say by the fact that it’s taken this long to build up to watching this film that it’s not one of the greatest movies ever made. This is like a great cake that never was; all of the ingredients were there, the oven was set to the right temperature and the cake bake for the right amount of time, but somewhere in all of that it failed to rise. Don’t ask me exactly where but it just misses the spot somewhere.
I originally bought this because I couldn’t find ‘Plunkett and Macleane’ (I was going through a Robert Carlyle phase at the time) and to be honest I think I might have made the right choice; I saw a part of P&M a few months away and was completely lost whereas I know where I am with this.
Alice Evans and Sophia Myles seem to have both mastered the art of looking all doe eyed in many scenes but really bring great warmth to some of the more heart felt scenes, and Myles has the spoilt younger sister down to perfection. Both Lapaine (Australian) and Rhys (Welsh) are quite nice to look at and have the British accents perfected. The supporting actors also help to underpin these four’s performances and add something to this movie in some way; Liam Cunningham (Power) play the villain well.

So before watching this today I was almost certain that this film was destined to end up on EBay; but can I really do that to the film that promoted this whole A-Z venture? In addition I can’t really dislike it that much if I’ve watched it twice in the last 5 months, surely! (I’ve also said a lot of nice thins here, and mean them)

This movie is in some ways predictable, but the combination of the period drama and romance really does make this in some ways a good watch, also when you finish watching this movie you don’t quite believe that you’ve been watching it for an hour and a half, the story happens in a fast paced manner and makes it enjoyable in most places. The back drop of rolling hills adds to it also.

Outcome

For now this is going to stay firmly on my shelf.