Abandoned Blu-ray offers decent video and audio, but overall it's a mediocre Blu-ray release
Mary Walsh delivers boyfriend Kevin to a hospital for routine outpatient surgery. But when Mary returns to take him home, he's mysteriously vanished. An administrator can find no record of him, and a police search turns up nothing. Increasingly frantic, Mary's taken to a staff psychiatrist, who pronounces her unstable. Now she must not only find her missing boyfriend, but prove her own sanity as well.
Abandoned, the final film of young Actress Brittany Murphy's career, is dedicated to her
remembrance at picture's end. For Murphy and her fans, Abandoned doesn't see the
actress
go out on the high note she achieved in the underrated 8 Mile or the
innocent
charm she exuded in the teenage Comedy Clueless, but both her performance -- and the
film itself -- is, thankfully, worlds better and a more suitable tribute than one of her other final
pictures, Megafault. While
Murphy plays a fairly transparent character in a mostly generic picture, Abandoned allows
the actress to put on display a wide berth of emotional and physical characteristics as her character
espouses love, contentment, and tranquility, only to find herself in a state of confusion and
inner-turmoil as she
struggles with questions revolving around her own sanity. Finally, she must confront a deadly
evil
head-on. Abandoned won't win Murphy any posthumous awards, but the film and her
performance in it are both worth checking out.
Frustrated, tired, abandoned.
Mary (Murphy) is escorting her boyfriend Kevin (Dean Cain) to the hospital so he can have
corrective surgery on a damaged leg. Everything seems to be going according to schedule, but
when Mary is never told when the operation has concluded, she begins asking around the hospital
for help. Unfortunately, she's told that there are no records of her boyfriend's surgery, and nobody
can even confirm the identity of a nurse who supposedly assisted him in the preparation stage.
Mary begins to panic, but her unstable emotional state is soon seen as a threat to both the other
patients and her own well-being. A local detective named Franklin (Jay Pickett) happens to be in
the hospital, and he initiates an impromptu investigation into Kevin's disappearance, though the
hospital staff -- from the top down -- all claim Mary's boyfriend doesn't exist and, therefore, could
not have
disappeared. As light is shed on Mary's past, the belief that she's not of sound mind and judgment
becomes the prevailing thought amongst those involved in her frantic search and deteriorating
emotional state. Is Mary's past finally catching up with her, or is there something more sinister at
work behind-the-scenes?
Summed up in a nutshell, Abandoned is basically Flightplan in a hospital
setting but with a somewhat different twist at the end. Unfortunately, Director Michael Feifer's
picture isn't a match for that 2005 Jodie Foster aerial Thriller; while it captures many of the same
elements -- a confused, angry, but certain individual searching for a missing loved one and pitted
against others in positions of authority who don't believe her story -- Abandoned lacks the
sheer intensity of Flightplan, an intensity achieved despite a mostly transparent plot.
Abandoned actually manages to keep its secrets under wraps a tad bit better than
Flightplan, but both films ultimately come to their expected conclusions and with little
fanfare or surprise because they dare not stray from long-established cinematic convention.
Flightplan's primary advantages? Bigger production values, superior
acting, and slicker direction. Abandoned is a knock-off no doubt, but it's at least a
knock-off that holds its own and is well worth a watch.
Stylistically, Abandoned delivers a fairly routine, but certainly effective, visual structure.
Feifer's direction is claustrophobic, and the handheld work seen in parts of the film lend to the
picture a personal and confused element that enhances the story very well. Nevertheless, the
glossy video sheen and the modest production values give Abandoned something of a TV
show look and feel from which it cannot escape, despite all of Feifer's efforts to the contrary.
Ultimately, there's little of note in Abandoned aside from its story and acting; the film was
clearly made on a shoestring budget (look for the firearm late in the movie with an obvious orange
plug in the barrel) and shot in and around just a handful of locales, and while the picture offers a
nice cross-section
of name talent, plenty of things throughout the movie give away the fact that it's little more than
a small production with modest ambitions.
No matter, Abandoned is destined to be
remembered as nothing more and nothing less than Brittany Murphy's final film. Her career was
an
interesting and promising one no doubt, and though she was a talented girl, she seemed to
be a product of
her script more so than simply her natural God-given abilities. In films like the aforementioned
8 Mile and Clueless, she shined, while in Megafault her effort was clearly
lacking, no doubt thanks in large part to a script that gave her almost nothing to work with.
Abandoned sees the actress pulling off a solid effort in a movie that's neither a failure nor
a
success; it's a middle-of-the-pack movie, and maybe this is the best way for fans to remember
Murphy: in a good performance that was probably reflective of what fans could have expected in
the years to come.
Anchor Bay brings Abandoned to Blu-ray with a good at-a-glance but nevertheless problematic
1080p transfer framed within a 1.78:1 window. The film takes on a very glossy video-like sheen; with
that comes good detailing and nice coloration, but almost no depth; Abandoned is one of the
flatter
images ever to grace Blu-ray. Still, the image displays above-average texturing, particularly noticeable
in
close-ups of faces and clothing. The image is also sharp with only a few wayward soft shots scattered
throughout the movie. Colors, too, are nicely represented, every hue appearing stable and neither too
dim nor too over-pumped. Unfortunately, the transfer is littered with some annoyances that range
between harmless and moderately distracting. A fair bit of noise buzzes about some darker scenes
while slight
blooming, jagged edges, crushed blacks, and occasional banding all creep into the frame from time to
time. While none are to the level of deal-breaker, altogether they manage to dampen, but not ruin,
the
viewing experience. Fortunately, the good outweighs the bad when the film is viewed within the
context of its shot-on-video genesis. Anchor Bay's transfer won't dazzle longtime format aficionados,
but neither is it an unbearable watch.
A mostly generic but certainly serviceable PCM 5.1 uncompressed soundtrack accompanies Anchor
Bay's Blu-ray release of Abandoned. The track captures some middle ground between
"quality" and "clunky," with the net result a track that's sonically adequate but lacking behind some of
the better Blu-ray soundtracks. Sound effects -- such as a rumbling vehicle engine or a gunshot --
sometimes sound harsh and artificial, while dialogue plays with some added weight across the low end
to discernible but not-quite-natural effect. The track does capture some environmental nuances,
mostly in the form of footsteps, rolling carts, closing doors, and other interior effects inside the hospital
setting. Surround speakers aren't fully engaged, and this track rarely creates a wholly seamless
atmosphere. Much like the video quality, Abandoned's soundtrack lacks spit and polish but,
mostly, isn't cause for alarm.
Abandoned isn't at all bad for a direct-to-video movie; still, "DTV" is a stigma the film will have
to live
with, but hopefully it's one that some potential viewers can look beyond. Abandoned is little
more
than a rip-off of Flightplan, but it acquits itself well enough in most every film-critical area. No
matter, though, because Abandoned is destined to be remembered only as Actress Brittany
Murphy's final on-screen performance. Fortunately, she turns in a good enough effort and stars in a
movie that's not the best of
her career but in one that is, thankfully, far from the worst. Anchor Bay's Blu-ray release of
Abandoned
sports a 1080p transfer that's not without a long list of faults, but it's one that looks solid when it's
on.
The PCM soundtrack is adequate, but Murphy's fans will be disappointed by the almost complete
absence of extra content. Abandoned is worth checking out as a rental.
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