When the fourth of five “Twilight” blockbusters hit the cinemas in 2011 with “Breaking Dawn – Bis(s) zum Ende der Nacht (Part 1)”, there were some indications that all three hyped stars of the fantasy series still had a big one Hollywood career could be ahead…
More than ten years later we are smarter: While Robert Pattinson (“The Lighthouse”) and Kristen Stewart (“Jean Seberg”) regularly shine in ambitious indie productions, washboard abs werewolf Taylor Lautner is after smaller comedy roles in Adam- Sandler comedies like Grown Ups 2 and British TV sitcoms like Cuckoo have now been largely written off.
Why is it? To a good extent certainly on the flop of Breathless: Dangerous Truth, which was supposed to seal Taylor Lautner’s breakthrough as a solo action star!
» “Breathless” on Amazon Prime Video*
In “Breathless” Taylor Lautner plays the normal teenager Nathan, who gets drunk at parties and has a secret crush on his cute neighbor Karen (Lily Collins). But then, as part of a school project, he comes across a website on which missing children are being searched for. There you can also see what children who have been missing for years would look like today – and one of these pictures is very reminiscent of Nathan himself.
But before he can think about whether he was kidnapped as a little boy, two men in black suits suddenly burst in, eliminate Nathan’s alleged parents (Maria Bello, Jason Isaacs) and blow up the house…
That sounds like an exciting robber’s gun at first – especially since with John Singleton (“Boyz N The Hood”) a actually capable action craftsman has taken a seat on the director’s chair. But puff cake! Yes, there are a few snappy stunts in which Taylor Lautner (like later in the extreme sports thriller “Tracers”) even cuts a pretty decent figure…
… but apart from that, it’s just as (in)credible as the outrageous story, which then doesn’t even come along in an entertaining, but in a boring, nonsensical way.
In the end, “Breathless – Dangerous Truth” didn’t even recoup its already rather small budget of only 35 million dollars in US cinemas (even worldwide it didn’t look much better with 82 million for a production of this caliber). Add to that scathing reviews (a whopping 5% on Rotten Tomatoes) and Taylor Lautner’s poor acting, and your action star career was over before it even got started…
This is a re-release of an article previously published on DashFUN to coincide with today’s TV broadcast of the film. *These links are so-called affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links or subscribe, we will receive a commission. This has no effect on the price.
