Rating: 
Summary: Worth one viewing only
Review: I liked this movie. It portrayed teenagers and college students in a far more subdued manner than normal and didn't animate any characters to the point of stupidity (IE Stifler is not in this movie and no one 'does it' with a dog covered in wedding cake). Almost everyone in is disconnected in some way and have feelings that do not show. It's a character driven movie that works thanks to delicate acting and atmospheric direction. I found the strobing scene to be particularly interesting, especially in retrospect now that I know the (pretty surprising) plot twist.Katie Holmes, though not remarkable, gives her role enough life to make the movie work but still cannot separate from her Dawson's Creek part. Only as the movie draws to a close does she really provoke any emotion from the audience. It's a difficult character to play but she just about makes it. The script is pretty weak but it's delivered in a deliberately empty way. We almost feel abandoned watching it. The movie is sparsely populated and makes us feel alone. It creates an interesting atmosphere that is the movie's saving grace. Without this edge it would be a waste of time. It's worth a rent, but only for viewing alone. The DVD has Audio commentary by Director / Writer Stephan Gaghan and Cinematographer Matthew Libatique, brief documentary, Deleted scenes with Director's commentary and a trailer. It is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and is in Dolby 5.1.
Rating: 
Summary: Okay, but not memorable
Review: Summary:
Katie Burke (Katie Holmes) is a star student at a prestigious Ivy League university. She is supported by well-deserved scholarships and seems to be able to pick and choose whom she will date. However, when she was a young undergraduate student she wasn't quite as well known and felt somewhat lucky to be noticed by and eventually dating Embry Larkin (Charlie Hunnam), who happens to be the most popular and controversial guy on campus. Most of the information we have on their relationship comes out as backstory flashbacks. The current story is actually the meeting of Katie with Wade Handler (Benjamin Bratt), a police officer who has been assigned to find Embry who disappeared several years previously. When Wade begins questioning Katie two things happen: (1) She begins seeing Embry again and he seems to be stalking her, and (2) She falls in love with Wade. But what we don't realize is that Katie's claim that Embry disappeared and she doesn't know where he is is actually a result of her having repressed the fact that she killed him when he tried to leave her. As it turns out, she does the same thing to Wade and the movie ends by setting her up to do it again. Apparently Katie, though intelligent and attractive, has a hard time being 'abandoned', thus the name of the film. My Comments:
The story was kind of interesting, but not particularly convincing. The first problem is that the title which is supposedly the motivation of the killings, Katie's sense of abandonment, is very poorly developed. Supposedly it stems from her father leaving her at a young age, but this is only very briefly mentioned despite employing a psychiatrist to delve into her past. I ended up thinking it all rather silly. The other problem I had with the story is that it tried to incorporate several red herrings and other characters that never really ended up being developed satisfactorily. Also, none of the characters were really convincing, but I'll get into that below. As for the acting, I had a major problem here. First, though I'm not really blaming Charlie Hunnam for his portrayal of Embry Larkin, I thought the character was ridiculously portrayed and a horrible stereotype. He tried so hard to be an artistic romantic that it came across as being pathetically cheesy. Every time he came on the screen I wanted to scream, "Please don't pretend to be some radical artist; just be yourself." Of course it didn't work and by the end of the movie I was sick of seeing him. Katie Holmes and Benjamin Bratt weren't too bad. But as noted above, the characters they were given to portray were too complex to be satisfactorily developed during the course of the movie. Holmes has too many problems and too many relationships to work through them all and Bratt's combination of alcoholism and bringing his work/witnesses home to sleep with them just didn't work. They tried pretty hard, but just by their nature they left me with an unsatisfied feeling. Overall, the movie had potential but seemed to try too hard to be artistic and it was fairly apparent that this was a first film for the director, straight out of film school. It did make me want to see what was going to happen next, but when I found out, I wasn't very satisfied.
Rating:
Summary: it's an ok thriller.
Review: well abandon is an ok thriller, that does play with your mind.
but it lacked something although i was bit creeped out after i saw .katie holmes was good in her role, believeable but not if know what i mean she just need some more season , she is quite lovely as leading lady not bad for somebody that came off the wb . A Warning to people who have seizures you might want to avoid this one there's a scene in the film that has lights flashing fast like stobe lights just thought i should warn you, but if your not affected by that then nevermind.
Rating:
Summary: Attempts to be Unpredictable, but falls short.
Review: When I noticed that the writer for "Abandon" was also responsible for writing "Traffic," I was expecting to see a pretty good, if not wonderful movie. What I got was a predictable, run of the mill, hollywood mystery/thriller. It reminded me of the teen thrillers that are being put out in abundance and this one is no different.
I was expecting that the movie would have twists and turns, but throughout the movie, these twists and turns are not that, when you pretty much know what is going to happen. The first big tip off is when Katie's boyfriend returns and only interacts with her, and disappears and reappears on a whim. Its quite obvious that something is not right with Katie. I'll say no more.
The performances by Katie Holmes and Benjamin Bratt are not bad, considering the script isn't all that great, and probably looks better on paper than on film. If you want a "smart" mystery, then look elsewhere. If you just want to be semi-entertained and don't care whether the film is predictable or not, then I would rent it. But, I'm just one person with an opinion on the movie, you never know, maybe you'll enjoy it.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring
Review: I am a big fan of Katie Holmes, but I can't deny that this movie is boring and disappointing. I was literally falling asleep in the movie theatre. In fact, I think I only focused in on half of the movie. I would not recommend this as a movie to watch over again.
Rating: 
Summary: Finally,a fillm which treats it's audience like adults
Review: In Abandon , a detective investigates the missing of creative , rich boy Ebri who has dissapeared mysteriously two years ago living his ex-girlfriend alone and shattered , wondering what happened to him . In order to reach a final conclusion about the young man's destiny , he gets to know her and slowly falls for her sweet and closed-to-herself character . She is just trying to move on with her life and he is willing to help her . What makes the film stand out is the fact that it feels more like a psychological potrait of a wounded teenage heart than a typical thriller flick . Everything about it , the direction , the dialogues , the acting , the lights clearly display the effort from everyone involved to dig beneath the surface of the story and characters . As for the cast , in the past Holmes has been in both good ( Wonder Boys ) and bad ( Teaching Mrs.Tingle ) films but this is definitely her best work yet . The melancholic , insecure Katie fits perfectly with her round face and the natural sweetness her looks send out . Bratt's sad and kind cop with a guilty past marks also a step forward for the career of the lo-fi actor . Indeed the ending is slightly dissapointing since it's too easy for a film with such rich direction and screenplay . When you spend most of the time of a movie in order to introduce us someone and to let us get to know his / her personallity , to finally say that he /she is actually mentally-ill is a risk . Even so , Abandon is a criminally overlooked , atmospheric film which deserved much more recognition that the one it got .
Rating: 
Summary: great
Review: This was a great movie but why the ending. It couldv'e done much more. I'm not going to give any spoilers so i'll leave you with this it is good but don't expect major thrills.
Rating:
Summary: Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here
Review: **1/2 "Abandon" is yet another in a long line of mystery films in which the audience is supposed to be thrown for a loop when it comes time for the filmmakers to unveil their "surprise, turnabout" ending. Only, in this case, most reasonably intelligent filmgoers should be able to spot the outcome miles ahead of the characters. Katie Holmes stars as Katie Burke, an attractive but overstressed college student who has had serious abandonment issues ever since her father left her when she was a little girl. It turns out that Katie was also dumped by her boyfriend, Embry Larkin, two years ago when he mysteriously vanished from school without a trace. Benjamin Bratt plays Wade Handler, a detective sent to investigate the disappearance who believes that the boy may have met with foul play. Suddenly, Katie starts seeing Embry popping up in various places around campus. Has he returned or is someone playing a cruel and vicious game on the distraught young woman? "Abandon" provides passable entertainment for undemanding mystery buffs, I suppose, but the film, as a whole, is neither particularly suspenseful nor particularly intriguing. The details of Bratt's past, which are supposed to somehow figure into his psychology, are so sketchily filled in that we have almost no idea of what the trauma was that supposedly turned his life around. Katie's issues are a little more clearly outlined, but her character still emerges as little more than a pop psychology cliché - as is the whole movie, in fact, when you come right down to it. "Abandon" is not really a bad film, just an instantly forgettable one. Chances are it might fit the bill on one of those long, lonely nights when the brain goes into snooze mode and anything of any real substance just seems too taxing.
Rating:
Summary: "Take me with you."
Review: The trailers make Abandon look like an edgy, terrifying thriller. In truth it's a sometimes slow-moving production with a shocking conclusion. It's not a bad movie from a purely thriller-fan standpoint; there are some excellent twists and turns, the performances are quite good, and the Hitchcockian climax is riveting. This film has been compared to many recent movies of the same genre, which really isn't fair. The problem is that the other films came first and Abandon does try to pull a few copycat moves. But this movie has one thing going for it and that's the creepy atmosphere. Dark corridors, dusty libraries, a country cottage after dark, a mansion falling to pieces. These scenes are spliced with taunting memories as Katie relives the past. The cinematography is beautiful but this form of filmmaking also makes the plot difficult to follow. The acting is good (Katie Holmes and Charlie Hunnam have some real intensity between them) but the characters aren't well developed. The movie is a bit tedious at times and demands a twice-over just so you can fully understand the full implications. The ending is also a cliffhanger, leaving you with a lot of questions. The script is fairly decent but does have plot holes. The PG13 rating should be observed, given mostly for scenes of typical secular college life -- drinking, drugs, and casual attitudes toward sex. The ending twist is more disconcerting than satisfying. I was strangely seduced by it the first time, and the story seemed to fill out more after a second viewing. It's not something I would purchase, but by in large the critics have given it an overly rough time. It deserves more respect than it receives.
Rating:
Summary: Not nearly as good as it should have been
Review: I went in to Abandon with high expectations, I left very disappointed. The first hour is what I expected it to be interesting and paced well, if not very exciting. But the last half-hour just ruins the movie. What starts out as an above-average thriller from the beginning ends in a muddle with an EXTREMELY disappointing ending that will make you wish you didn't invest in what you just watched. What the film does do right, it does very well. Such as the casting of Katie Holmes and Benjamin Bratt. They're both very good in their roles and do what they can with a very bad script. Also, the film does a good job of keeping a dark atmosphere and making us care up to final 30 minutes where it just falls apart. BOTTOM LINE: This is a good mystery/thriller that keeps you interested up to the final act. But then the movie slips further and further until it completely falls at the terrible ending. (2.5 stars out of 5)
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