Abandon Reviews

The twist ending ... becomes discernible around the midway point, but Gaghan makes up for it ...

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

In the end, the film is less the cheap thriller you'd expect than it is a fairly revealing study of its two main characters - damaged-goods people whose orbits will inevitably and dangerously collide.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Abandon is a damn good movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

For what I suppose must be classified as a 'teen thriller,' this film has a surprising amount of substance.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

Easily the most manipulative thriller since Brian De Palma retired to a career of spectacular irrelevance. That's why it's so effective - and fiendishly satisfying.

| Original Score: 3/4

[Gaghan] successfully illustrates that if a filmmaker is capable and intelligent -- and assumes that his audience is the same -- he can transcend the limitations of even so lowly a genre.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

Once I realized that Abandon was going down a different path, I really started to admire it.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

It's light on the chills and heavy on the atmospheric weirdness, and there are moments of jaw-droppingly odd behavior -- yet I found it weirdly appealing.

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Difficult to peg and just as hard to predict.

Full Review | Original Score: 72/100

A psychological thriller that doesn't thrill much and whose ending we can guess halfway through; but if you're a lover of smart dialogue and intelligent characters, you won't be disappointed.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Credit this picture with an ambitious effort to dramatize an ineffable yet recognizable mood -- even if its ambition isn't quite fulfilled.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

You've convinced yourself it's a drama just before the story twists, after which the throwaway 'filler' scenes become conversation points you'll decipher on the way home.

Full Review | Original Score: B-

Challenging, intermittently engrossing and unflaggingly creative. But it's too long and too convoluted and it ends in a muddle.

Full Review | Original Score: B-

What begins as yet another school-set thriller gradually evolves into something more psychologically layered.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Gaghan would rather make you think than jump. You might prefer to do both, but idea-driven thrillers are in short supply, and the troubled Katie earns the right to haunt your mind.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

A competently made, mildly diverting collegiate thriller.

Full Review | Original Score: B

... an otherwise intense, twist-and-turn thriller that certainly shouldn't hurt talented young Gaghan's resume.

| Original Score: 3.5/5

Not terribly original but a well-made psychological thriller with fine performances.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

It really is almost impressive how bad this is.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

A flimsy and tedious thriller.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4

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