Despite an intriguing premise, a few trashy thrills and several moments of genuine suspense, this abduction drama transforms into a dumb action flick halfway through. As usual, Bacon oozes reptilian charm in the role of the chief kidnapper. He may stray too often into such safe material as He Said, She Said, but this is an actor who was clearly born to play villains. Fans of the performer's full-frontal turns in Wild Things and Hollow Man will no doubt enjoy the constant anxiety about Bacon's. Love, however, fails to reveal much except her continuing propensity for playing emotionally and physically bruised victims. Her character is a mess, but the actress fails to delineate why, although to be fair, she's the victim of thin writing. The same is true of Townsend and Theron, who play the sort of bland, upper upper middle-class ciphers who only exist in Hollywood thrillers — the kind with fewer tics and peculiarities than your average extra. Picking on the poor stars, however, would be as mean-spirited as blaming young Dakota Fanning for playing such an absurdly precocious little moppet. The real problems are Iles' silly screenplay and Luis Mandoki's bombastic direction. By the time the finale rolls around, replete with an aerial landing in the middle of a busy highway, the sub-Bruckheimer set pieces and glaring plot holes have long since ceased to amuse. Turn instead to David Fincher's taut Panic Room for a more effective and enjoyable contemporary thriller.