The Abandon Review

Fellow movie-goers: Cool rebranding of a premise, and for the most part lives up to the intrigue it promises.
9 Plot: Great twist on the "wake up in a locked room" film.
8 Acting: Basically, a one man show, Jonathan Rosenthal did an awesome job.
7 Directing: Jason Satterlund does great keeping us interested.
7 Cinematography: For a basic one room movie, the shots were interesting.
7 Pacing: Surprisingly, the pacing is great, you never know what to expect
7.6

Here’s the premise:  U.S. soldier Miles Willis (Jonathan Rosenthal) is wounded in battle and wakes up in a gray cell with nothing but what was on him when he was shot. With no doors or windows, Miles searches ways to escape this odd prison. Just when Miles gets his bearings, things in the room change in various ways (the room spins, words appear on the walls, at times the room shrinks, etc.) When Miles gets a phone call on his satellite phone from a mysterious woman in the same predicament, they work together to figure out what is going on.

Unlike other “cube” movies, this one is not a slasher film, but more like a puzzle that is needing to be solved.  I loved the direction writer Dwain Worrell and Director Jason Satterlund took with this all too worn out premise. They let the audience work on the puzzle at the same time as the characters do, and it was intriguing to do so. I found myself wondering what I would do in this situation and I frantically was scanning the screen to see any clues around the room, and listening for any hint of what was happening. The movie had me wrapped up from the moment Miles wakes up in the box, all the way to the end.

The writing is tight, and the surprises and reveals come at just the right pace. Jonathon Rosenthal does an amazing job being the one character we see most of the time, he is the main focus of the movie and he pulls it off perfectly.

My only gripe is the ending, not a fan of how it ended and I will leave it at that. I do, however, highly recommend THE ABANDON, it was a fresh look at a tired prenise.

Russell Lockhart

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