Stolen

[Stolen] Directed by Anders Anderson

At [IFC Center]

Running time: 97 min.

Unfolding like a mid ’90s TV movie (complete with C-list movie star and A-list TV actor), Stolen doesn’t do much other than offer Jon Hamm the chance to prove that he’s more than Mad Men’s Don Draper.

Set in both 1958 and 2008, the movie revolves around two fathers looking for their missing sons. Josh Lucas is the ’50s dad, prone to expository dialogue and devastated by the sudden disappearance of his developmentally disabled son. Hamm is the contemporary dad, a cop who has been looking for his missing son for eight years. Serendipitously enough, he becomes involved in the investigation when the body of Lucas’ son is discovered buried in a wooden box.

Filmed in a washed-out palette that is meant to convey desperation but just comes across as cheap, Stolen offers little to the recent sub-genre of Imperiled Children movies, even as it takes the fathers’ point of view. James Van Der Beek appears in both time periods, saddled with hilariously gross old-age make-up during his scenes with Hamm. Hamm himself is too smart a performer for movies like these, but let’s write it off as a canny career move to take a vacation from Don Draper and his glumness.