The Abduction of Zack Butterfield

2011
The Abduction of Zack Butterfield
5| 1h31m| en| More Info
Released: 19 April 2011 Released
Producted By: Metropolis Films
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Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

A beautiful but disturbed young woman returns to the US after combat as a American mercenary in Iraq and abducts a 14-year-old New York boy, holding him prisoner in her isolated country home as a bizarre relationship develops.

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griz1-199-491493 . . . this would be one cut by an amateur not realizing the stone's true potential. It's hardly polished at all; and is mounted in a setting wrought from an old tin cup. Between poor writing, dropped plot-lines (the sunglasses), 2-dimensional "cardboard cut-out" support characters and unnecessary sub-plots (the nerd and his faulty fuel gauge) . . . critics will find ample fodder to shoot this production down. But I rated it a 5 because it dared to tackle the uber mega taboo topic of the toxic femme. In a post-feministic culture where men are pigs and women are the saintly victims with excuses, this is a topic that needs more brave production crews tackling it. It is an "accepted factoid" that only 1/3 of convicted child sex offenders are female. But this doesn't consider aspects of the young male ego that would refuse to see such an assault by a woman as "abuse" to be reported . . . but rather as a boasting point of the boy's precocious sexual prowess (as the lead character notes, or as seen in the mostly forgotten Letourneau case where to this day the then-12-yr-old boy refuses to see himself as a victim). Only a fraction of actual assaults against boys by women go reported, and only a fraction of these go on to prosecution. And even then it takes considerable grooming and coaching to have a boy present himself in court as "the victim".The main theme of this movie is the kidnapping and alleged sexual assault of a boy by a "troubled" woman. Both of the lead roles are performed skillfully enough to carry the story. The sub- story of the antagonist's being the result of her own toxic mother "spewing her venom" all over the home so the father quietly leaves, is adequately integrated. But the part about the "educational abuse" of boys by feministic teachers (while a prevalent social problem) is dropped on us with all the tact of a turd in the punch bowl. As in "Whoa! Where did that come from??". These are all issues that while very prevalent in our society, are taboo to discuss -- let alone make a movie about. But they are issues we need to stop sweeping under the rug. This movie has value. But it is a value that has been squandered on poor writing/production. Here's hoping more effective productions bringing light to these themes are in the wings.
Bill Davis I waited a long time for this to become available on DVD. It's an interesting idea for a movie and the trailer made it look like it could be a credible film, but it is close to bottom-of-the-barrel film making. Barely a notch above homemade YouTube video productions. For such a prurient plot line there is nothing in this movie that would make a nun blush. The most memorable sex scene involves them jumping on the bed as the camera moves away and points to the floor as the couple's articles of clothing are thrown there into a pile while music from Swan Lake is played. Swan Lake! It was like a parody of a bad lovemaking scene! The boy is appealing enough in the lead but every other performance in the movie seems amateurish. The young woman is nowhere near credible as a skilled and dangerous war veteran. And it ends abruptly with several captions to explain what happened after, which were both inane and unsatisfying. Somebody had an provocative idea for a movie, but no ability to deliver one.
JustinJKanter I have never felt so compelled to tell people to stay away from a film, a filmmaker and actors more than this film, this filmmaker and these actors. (so much so that I actually signed up for an IMDb account!) Not only are they wasting any audience's time. But you can feel the absolute waste of time they all must have experienced. After all, I only lost about an hour and a half of my time. A loss I deeply regret, but I can only imagine that the writers, producers, director and actors have lost much more time and have done irreparable damage to their reputations. The only good thing I can say is that actor playing Agent Quincannon reminds me of 70's porn actor Scott Noll, unfortunately he seems to come from the same deer in the headlights school of acting porn actors do. The sad thing is that the set up, the idea behind the film is not half bad. It's a little like Hard Candy meets L.I.E. (which this "screenwriter/producer" also created. He seems to be plagiarizing himself and doing some self-therapy all at once.)The execution however is so laughably amateurish that at every aspect from beginning to end you are slack-jawed at how anyone involved in the production didn't just walk away. That the actors had to deliver such leaden lines is one thing, but if you are gonna have such a terrible script then at least the producers should have insisted in casting better actors. Or perhaps this was a case of producers scraping the bottom of the barrel as no self-respecting actor would ever take on a role if they actually bothered to read the script.Did I watch the entire thing? Yes,I unfortunately did. Did I feel my time was wasted, no doubt. So why didn't I walk away? Because I expected at least something to happen to elevate it to camp status. That moment unfortunately never came, which leads me to believe everyone involved actually thought they were making something good.
iammenkphoto Beautifully rendered depiction of psychology of interrelationship that can develop between captor and captured...Using older woman - younger boy to illustrate how this can occur. A too frequent scenario, usually passed by, here examined with depth, clarity and sensitivity. The relationships most frequently used to illustrate this are between older men and younger women, or between persons of the same sex. Iraq was the first war in which we sent women into combat. Post traumatic stress disorder is expressed in many ways. Using this disorder, the writer and director have detailed the development of this relationship with such finesse that the viewer is alternately thrown from compassion to revulsion to sorrow. If you have it within you, you will come away with greater depth of feeling and understanding about this condition. The cinematography by Aric Jacobson is exquisite. (I shot the set stills for this film.)