Katie Burke (Katie Holmes) is a college senior trying to finish her thesis, and land the big job. Detective Wade Handler (Benjamin Bratt) is tracking down missing person Embry Larkin (Charlie Hunnam). He is a rich artistic student who was Katie's boyfriend when he disappeared 2 years ago. He's an enigma and a mystery that continues to haunt Katie.

This thing is very muddled. The sad part is that there is a good movie in here somewhere. Katie Holmes is actually pretty good. There are a lot good actors coming in and out of this like Zooey Deschanel, Melanie Lynskey, and Tony Goldwyn. But first time director Stephen Gaghan has stuffed so many things in here. There are flashbacks, present day flashes of Embry, too many characters, pushing the colors to blue, and a disjointed flow. It's as if Gaghan couldn't get out of his own way.

And the movie doesn't allow the mystery to advance. It drags on for far too long. It's a lot of glimpses of Embry. And Katie isn't quite frantic enough. Benjamin Bratt doesn't have the presence to play the cop. It has a bit of creepy atmosphere, but it wears thin pretty quickly. And the payoff comes out of nowhere to rewrite most of the movie.

Detective Wade Handler (Benjamin Bratt) is assigned to investigate the disappearance of the millionaire Embry Larkin (Charlie Hunnam),who vanished two years ago. Wade looks for Embry's former girlfriend, Katie Burke (Katie Holmes),in the campus of their university. Katie is under pressure, completing her thesis, disputing a job in a reputable and prestigious company and having sessions with her psychiatric, Dr. David Schaffer (Tony Goldwyn). Katie misses Embry, since she has no family, but she feels a great attraction for Detective Wade. During the investigation, Embry returns without any explanation and her colleague Harrison Hobart (Gabriel Mann) that has a crush on her disappears. Katie believes that Embry is the responsible and tells to Wade. But nobody can find Embry.

"Abandon" is a predictable and forgettable low-budget movie. The storyline is interesting but the screenplay is boring and deserved to be improved. It is not difficult to foresee the plot when Embry returns. The conclusion is excellent. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Sem Pistas" ("Without Tracks")

Note: On 25 November 2015, I saw this movie again.

SPOILERS.

Not much in the way of animation here, folks. Nobody grabs up a knife and slaughters anybody else. No screams. Not a drop of blood. It's moody, atmospheric, and a little dull.

I don't mind the absence of gore. Actually it comes as a kind of relief after seeing some of the junk now being retailed. What I mean is that it's possible to make a truly decent scary movie without an excess of makeup. Think "Repulsion" or "Psycho."

This one depends for its impact on the performances, which are uniformly okay. The Embry character is repulsively handsome. Benjamin Bratt is a most unlikely cop -- soft-spoken, polite, reads Camus. Katie Holmes is a puzzle. Yes, she turns in a decent performance but she looks much more like a high-school freshman than a college graduate.

She and Embry are supposed to be irresistible for vastly different reasons but certainly for they share good looks, which prompts me to wonder what constitutes good looks. The Embry character I can't really speak for, except that he looks like a cross between James Dean and Brad Pitt, and a heavy one to bear. Holmes has a wide forehead, big brown eyes, big ears, plump lips, and a slight figure. She looks about one step away from one of those big-eyed Walter Keane children, with the tear rolling down its cheek.

She's very attractive -- but why? How many millimeters of chin separate her from Zoey Deschanel, the most lively character in the movie? How many degrees of tilt separate their respective noses? The whole subject of beauty is a puzzle because we react dramatically to it every day of our lives -- discriminating against the plain in favor of the attractive -- but no one seems to recognize that we're doing it.

Well, never mind. Read my forthcoming book, "I'm Beautiful, You're Ugly."

The script is really pretty good. In one scene Bratt, the detective, questions a plump ordinary young woman about the Holmes character. The dialog is nearly perfect. The interrogation reveals her to be admiring of Holmes, but envious too, and slightly nervous. (She twists a string around her fingers and speaks self consciously.) Everyone likes Holmes, says the girl, and they all want to save her because she seems hurt. Her impression is not entirely accurate (Embry dumps her unceremoniously) but true enough for general purposes. Who wouldn't want to save a hurt child?

One more example of good dialog. The last meeting between Holmes and her psychiatrist. He's been objective and shrink-like all along, and finally suggests that if she finds it difficult to adjust to her new life after graduation she should feel free to call him. In fact, he might even call HER, and he leans forward, full of extra-therapeutic vibes, and places his hands softly over hers. The light bulb goes on. Holmes tells him sweetly that he's been such a great help that now she needs to tell him she can get along without him. "Thank you for making it easy," she adds. (Not bad.)

But, man, is this movie slow. Well -- not slow exactly but unfocused. I couldn't tell where it was headed. I wasn't expected a plot like an express train but this meanders all over the place. By the last third of the movie I began to suspect what was up with Embry, who is revealed as a stalker. When a threatening figure makes appearances out of shadows when the heroine is all alone -- and only then -- well, nobody has to draw the experienced viewer a picture.

The climax was, I guess, "confusing" is the word. Katie Holmes has knocked off Embry, who fully deserved knocking off. But what happened to Bratt? And how did Holmes wind up at a high-echelon job in New York, about to repeat her response to any man who rejects her?

Too bad about the plot because the movie has so many virtues. The direction is restrained and effective, the performances fine, the locations nicely chosen -- but the story! Like a fully-formed, very attractive human being with no spine.