Review of Abduction Club, The

Introduction

It is 18th century Ireland. Byrne and Strang are both handsome and witty, but as the second sons of wealthy Irish families they stand to inherit absolutely nothing. Traditional law mandates that only the eldest son inherits a father`s estate, leaving all younger sons penniless. That is unless they can find an heiress of their own to marry. The long established Abduction Club has been formed for this very purpose, a naughty alliance of disenfranchised younger sons, members are skilled in the fine art of bypassing courtship by stealing away rich heiresses and charming them into marriage. The rules are that each man has just one night to succeed and if the girls agree, a priest is on hand to perform the rites there and then. If not the girl is safely returned to her family home with her honour intact. However a bungled kidnap involving Byrne and a beautiful but headstrong Catherine Kennedy leaves them on the run with her and her sister Alice in tow.

Video

The video is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and is of reasonable quality but suffering from above average amounts of film grain. The picture is a little low resolution at times

Visually, the film is quite well made, with good use of location and authentic looking sets. The Irish scenery is beautiful at times with some impressive locations on display.

Audio

The sound is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 but for the most part you wouldn`t know, with the sound focussing on the front three channels and very little of note from the rear stereo pair except for spot effects (such as horses running past for example).

There are plenty of effects and music, all of which are well reproduced, albeit sounding rather flat and the movie would definitely have benefited from a more aggressive sound mix.

Features

My preview was a rental copy, with a particularly dull menu which consists of a static screen picturing the rental case.

According to the press release, the retail copies won`t fare much better.

Conclusion

Overall the movie is a quite entertaining period romantic drama which is perfectly watchable and a good way to spend a lazy evening without taxing your brain. The young cast all play their parts well despite some particularly cheesy lines that might well have you cringing behind a cushion.

The video and sound are both more than adequate, although both could have been better. The lack of extras is extremely disappointing, although the movie is priced at a very competitive £9.99, so this can be overlooked.