In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

I thought this movie was great! I'm surprised I never saw it, as I love Gabriel Mann, Katie Holmes, Zoey Deschancel, etc. This movie has a 4.9 right now and I can't believe that. It is more artsy than perhaps people were ready for back when it came out, but now I think it's a really great movie. "Slow" maybe but not more than a hundred films in the 2000s and 2010s that got much higher ratings. It's not horribly confusing either, although you do get to think during it to figure out what you think is going on. It's pretty good. I give this a 7.5.

Katie Burke (Katie Holmes) is a college senior trying to finish her thesis, and land the big job. Detective Wade Handler (Benjamin Bratt) is tracking down missing person Embry Larkin (Charlie Hunnam). He is a rich artistic student who was Katie's boyfriend when he disappeared 2 years ago. He's an enigma and a mystery that continues to haunt Katie.This thing is very muddled. The sad part is that there is a good movie in here somewhere. Katie Holmes is actually pretty good. There are a lot good actors coming in and out of this like Zooey Deschanel, Melanie Lynskey, and Tony Goldwyn. But first time director Stephen Gaghan has stuffed so many things in here. There are flashbacks, present day flashes of Embry, too many characters, pushing the colors to blue, and a disjointed flow. It's as if Gaghan couldn't get out of his own way.And the movie doesn't allow the mystery to advance. It drags on for far too long. It's a lot of glimpses of Embry. And Katie isn't quite frantic enough. Benjamin Bratt doesn't have the presence to play the cop. It has a bit of creepy atmosphere, but it wears thin pretty quickly. And the payoff comes out of nowhere to rewrite most of the movie.

I hadn't even heard of this film, until a friend gave it to me. From the plot's outline of the back of the case it sounded alright, but I was thinking that I wouldn't get around to it for awhile. However something kept bugging me that eventually I made a decision for it to be the next film I would watch. As it is, 'Abandon' was an adequately sedate and isolated mystery drama with a compellingly patterned (and very teasing) plot and outstanding lead performance by no other than Katie Holmes… yeah I had one of my eyebrows raised, but she was surprisingly convincing in her turn. Also she was backed up by a vibrant Zooey Deschanel, a potently sullen Benjamin Bratt and an intensely uneasy Charlie Hunnam. Fred Ward would also appear in nothing more than a cameo role.Writer / director Stephen Gaghan does a professionally stylized and polished job (especially the first-rate cinematography) in what is a solid, if unspectacular psychological driven story. The perceptive narrative (with an alienating script) moves in between present time and flashbacks to fully grasp what's happening in this puzzling set-up. Katie Burke is feeling the pressure to finish her thesis at a highly prestigious university and now a premier consulting firm has a real keen eye on her. However what's really plaguing her mind is that of her freshman romance two years earlier with Embry, and that of his strange disappearance. Detective Wade Handler (a recovering alcoholic) takes on the case, and begins asking questions and Katie comes under his eye. Then out of the blue Embry begins popping up every now and again, to somewhat make Katie's life even more hectic.Sounds like nothing terribly new, and it isn't. However it's hard-working and well-executed, even though it demonstrates a shallow touch and feels like its doing nothing more than letting time tick by to only crash upon its big striking revelation. I don't think there are many possibilities to piece together or to truly throw you off track, despite its ditches to bring out the aspect of there being more going on under the surface. There's something there that keeps you watching, as it's slowly tailored (deliberately) with a somber air cooking up a sterile look with a metallic glimmer to the imagery. Despite its transfixing quality, it can get flabby but there's a certain creepy energy within and the hauntingly soft score accommodates the moody atmospherics of the dependable location settings.A conventional, but interesting mystery-drama.

What does it matter if the plot moved slowly? I don't agree with the other comments here that say that there was no character development or that the movie was boring. It wasn't. It built up slowly but firmly to a very disturbing ending. The filming was brilliant, dark, moody, creepy. It kept me on the edge of my seat. It was a disturbing film because it hinted all the time at Katie's possible mental illness and her real abandonment issues, but somehow you were rooting for her to be the heroine and to find happiness with the cop. It almost seemed at times that reality was forcing its way into Katie's consciousness, which scared her, and then she returned to the self that she presented to the world. She was a psychopath. The library scene was scary, as was the scene with the strobe lighting where she 'sees' Embry. The abandoned dorm house that was to be razed was also creepy, the way the house stood in the background bathed in a kind of white light at night. It was eerie. The only thing that really didn't make sense was that no investigations of the abandoned dorms were ever done by the police. It would seem to me that this would have been done in reality when students went missing. This is the only reason I didn't give the film a 10. Otherwise, kudos to Katie Holme for great acting, and to Benjamin Bratt as well. His was a sympathetic character.