Have you ever wanted to see a movie without any sort of conflict, engaging characters, or anything that’s even remotely woven together into a mystery or drama? Then congratulations! You will enjoy Stolen.

There is nothing even remotely connected or functional about this movie. But rather than bash it, I will turn it into a helpful guide for all aspiring filmmakers writing a story about child abduction. Maybe this template will help with creating sad existential melodrama!

1: Make your protagonist(s) likable. That is, have the dad freak out whenever the mother even thinks of interfering with their long-lost child’s belongings. Give us the whole conflict about turning the bedroom into a home gym or something, because we haven’t heard it countless times already. Repeat this a thousand times, to make sure we get that the father wants to keep his son alive through the preservation of his toys and stuff. Character study, check!

2: Have a bunch of close-ups of the child’s belongings in a slow tracking shot. Next, insert some audio clips of the child playing, or laughing, or saying some random thing, then cut to the father doing taxes or staring at the wall. For the final, crushing blow, go in for the close up of the father’s face so we can see his expression of regret, sadness, anger, or whatever your actors are willing to do for money. Character study, double check!

3: Flashbacks. Quantity over quality. The more times we see the kid being abducted, the more we can truly understand the emotion turmoil. To mix things up, flash back to some other character getting his son taken from him, for about 30 minutes, then cut back to the current plotline. This way, we’ve already forgotten what movie we’re watching, so feel free to confuse us with your stylish writing devices.

4: Mystery? Unnecessary. Don’t waste our time (or your time) coming up with a plot. As a lover of thrillers, I hate complicated, twisty, unpredictable plotlines like Cache or The Chaser that involve the viewer in what’s happening onscreen. You should stage the movie so that I can fall asleep in the middle, check my email, or go shopping and come back to the same thing I saw last.

5: If the father goes away to have sex with some random lady and leaves his retarded son in the car with the doors unlocked, it’s original, and therefore it’s smart. Remember, things that haven’t been done before are naturally clever. I can’t even begin to fathom why this idea wasn’t employed in Taken or Reservation Road.

6: If you feel the urge to end the movie, pad it out for another thirty minutes – oh wait, this was only an hour and a half? My apologies, I thought this was at least 345197685 hours (and thirty minutes), carry on.

7: If all else fails, sequel bait. Have the “missing” kid burst out of the ground and run after Jon Hamm. Incidentally, this is the only major requirement missing from Stolen. Maybe it was left on the cutting room floor along with the musical number, the car chase, and the part when he looks at the camera and says “gee, looks like I’m really Hamm-ing this up.”

In all seriousness, this movie is exceptionally terrible. And boring! The worst kind of boring! Just so you know, the “good” boring is when you’re bored by what’s happening onscreen. The “bad” boring is when you’re bored because nothing is happening onscreen. Just put on a sepia filter and shoot some gravel, editing will take care of the rest!

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