Stolen (2012)

Stolen arrives from 2012, a year when Nicolas Cage was still contractually obligated to appear in at least one film per calendar quarter, and it does the job of a heist picture with the enthusiasm of a man filling out a rebate form. Simon West directs with competence and no detectable interest in anything beyond the next chase. Will Montgomery, freshly released from a decade in prison, learns that his former partner has locked his teenage daughter in the trunk of a taxi and demands ten million dollars that no longer exists. The remainder is a tour of New Orleans during Mardi Gras, a burned corpse identified by DNA, a thermal lance, and an abandoned amusement park. The plot is serviceable. The film is not.

For the purposes of classification, this is barren ground. No argument is being made about who we are or how we ought to live. New Orleans supplies a diverse backdrop, and the film regards that backdrop the way it regards the architecture: as scenery to be driven past. Women appear as a kidnapped daughter and a getaway driver, and the screenplay grants neither a thought beyond her utility to the plot. Race is present in the streets and absent from the script. The villain wants money. The hero wants his child. Nobody pauses to explain the moral architecture of either desire, which is perhaps the closest thing to a virtue on offer.

The cultural footprint is shallow. It opened on 141 screens, earned a shrug, and vanished. There is no sermon here, no lesson, no invitation to examine our assumptions. Just a man on fire, twice, and a chunk of gold thrown into a bayou. In an era that rewards films for having something to say, Stolen says nothing at all, and it says it loudly, with explosions. We are left to note the silence and proceed to the next screening.