Bullet Points: Abduction (2019)

Scott Adkins could have easily played a ninja or Boyka over and over again for his entire career and I doubt his die hard fans would complain. But to Scott’s credit he has been making the effort to seek out different roles to prove himself as an actor and be seen as more than just a martial artist who makes movies.

This strategy has been evident in the past year alone with Adkins acting work in Accident Man, The Debt Collector and Avengement getting as much praise as his action work in those films.

Scott Adkins’ latest film, Abduction, is another unique entry into Adkins’ filmography as his character is thrown into a mind bending sci-fi adventure… even if the poster does not reflect that.

• So You’ve Had a Bad Day Part 1: Quinn (Scott Adkins, Avengement) finds himself face down on a big long slab of a table with a bunch of other people, who are having a spider like apparatus removed from the back of their necks… it is like a scene out of nightmare… Quinn manages to slip away and finds a room with people in cages, one of those people is his daughter Lucy. But when he tries to free her a cloaked figure stops him and with a single punch, sends Quinn through a wall, out of the building and plummeting to the water below… when Quinn emerges out of the water, he pops out of Victory Fountain in Vietnam!?!? From there an amnesiac Quinn finds himself wandering around Vietnam, stuttering and stammering trying to see if anyone can point him in the direction of the British Embassy. Quinn eventually gives up and finds himself asleep in an alley, where he is woken up by cops hassling him… next thing you know Quinn is fighting with the cops and kicking their asses. The cops manage to subdue Quinn, arrest him and take him to the nearest hospital believing he is an emotionally disturbed person.

• So You’ve Had a Bad Day Part 2: Conner (Andy On, Special ID) is an enforcer for the mob in Vietnam. Conner is letting some Russian gangsters know that they are not welcome on his boss’ turf… this will be Conner’s last job for his boss Master Tron. With his one last big pay day from Tron, Conner plans on returning to China with his beautiful wife Maya. But when he gets home, he quickly realizes that he was late for dinner and that Maya is pissed… he tells her his big plans for them to return to China, but it is obvious she has heard this sort of thing from him before and really doesn’t believe him and definitely doesn’t want to benefit from his blood money. So Conner finds himself on the couch that night… and if sleeping on the couch isn’t bad enough, he has a nightmare that his wife is being abducted by some cloaked figures… only when he wakes up he finds out it wasn’t a nightmare… Maya is gone! But it gets worse… the Russians are looking for some revenge for what Conner did to them and they’ve found out where he lives… which is good for the audience because we are about to get some Conner battling the Russians action, but it is just more bad news for Conner.

• Quinn and the Medicine Woman: Meanwhile back at the hospital, Quinn is being interviewed by Anna (Truong Ngoc Anh), the head psychiatrist at the hospital. Quinn tells Anna he has no idea how he got to Vietnam, he just remembers waking up in the fountain at Victory Park, then Quinn starts to tell Anna about the aliens abducted his daughter and even mentions how the story was on the front page of the newspaper last Friday. Anna pretty much chalks up Quinn as a lunatic, but after their session she curiously searches for the newspaper article and finds it… except “last Friday” was actually in 1985 and the picture of Quinn in the paper, looks exactly like the Quinn she just spoke to.

• Stranger Things: Conner is about to have his mind bent… after ruling out the Russians as the men who abducted his wife, Conner finds out Master Tron’s son (conveniently named Sonny) brokered a deal with someone for Maya. So Conner tails Sonny and what he sees is Sonny meeting with a mysterious cloaked figure (played by Brahim Chab, Boyka: Undisputed). Conner interrupts, has a losing battle with the cloaked Brahim, before getting some answers out of Sonny… answers that lead him to the fountain at Victory Park. And it is at Victory Park where Conner bumps into Anna, who is also curious about this place based on what Quinn had told her. It is Anna who brings our two heroes Conner and Quinn together and the trio soon learn that the mysterious cloaked figures are not aliens, but inter dimensional beings!

It seems fitting that Scott Adkins and Andy On would reunite in an action movie that is so heavy on the sci-fi elements since their first movie together, Black Mask 2: City of Masks, was also a sci-fi actioner.

Abduction is part action and part sci-fi… so it probably won’t rank as any pure action fan’s favorite Scott Adkins movie, but the action portions of the film are top notch which is no surprise given the participants and the fact that the fight choreographer was the talented Tim Man… with an assist from the aforementioned Brahim Chab.

Now for this review to get an assist from some Bonus Bullet Points…

• Familiar Faces: Aki Aleong, who I believe I will always remember most from Braddock: Missing in Action III, plays the mentor to Dr. Anna… And there is no missing Big Mike Leeder, who I most recently enjoyed in Ultimate Justice with his shovel. Leeder plays The Cleaner, the big brute who hauls around bodies in a wagon for the inter dimensional beings who control him.
• If You Ever: …wanted to see Scott Adkins rock a graffiti jacket, then this is the movie for you.
• The Name Game: Not to be confused with the 2011 film Abduction starring Taylor Lautner.
• If You Ever: …wanted to see a guy with a hook hand, get his hand replaced thanks to advanced inter dimensional technology, then this is the movie for you.