“Abandon,” the new thriller written and directed by Stephen Gaghan, fits in the category of movies in which the trailer can easily give away the entire plot of the movie. Although there are some classic suspense scenes, most of them are incorporated into the trailer, which may spoil the entire movie for die-hard thrill-seekers. This fact may very well leave the viewer confused as to what filled the space in the 99 minutes that weren’t shown in the trailer.

Those not having the thriller intuition are left to sit for the entire movie in the dark as to what the surprise ending is. In “Abandon,” this becomes a somewhat boring and exhausting process that may be rewarded at least in part by the ending. “Abandon” easily disappoints the classic thriller moviegoer with a plot best described as sluggish; however, its redeeming qualities are worth a mention.

Katie Holmes stars as Catherine Burke, a stressed out senior who is desperately attempting to finish her thesis while trying to land a job for after college.

Deep down she is still dealing with her father’s abandoning her as a little girl as well as the disappearance of her one and only boyfriend Embry Larkin (Charlie Hunnam), who mysteriously left over two years earlier.

Benjamin Bratt plays Wade Handler, a recovering alcoholic and cop assigned to investigate Embry’s disappearance, who becomes deeply involved in the mystery. The investigation leads to events and people from the past revealing themselves, and the disappearances begin to look more and more suspicious.

After one forgets Holmes’ acting on the WB, she seems to pull off the stressed and distressed part of Catherine Burke with a decent amount of acting skill and dignity. It seems the detective part in “Abandon” was made for Benjamin Bratt, and with his massive experience playing a police officer, he delivers flawlessly. Bratt, however, leaves you a bit wanting in the romantic role he assumes later in the movie. The director spends a good amount of the movie developing the characters, which adds a depth of psychology to the plot. The depth, unfortunately, is not well-balanced and partially results in the sluggish nature of the film. The intermittent suspense scenes augment the loose thriller nature of the film, but the director deserves credit for the last minutes of the film, which leave a disturbing picture unique to a psychological thrillers.

In “Abandon,” Gaghan attempts to provide the drama and suspense through slow deliberation of plot and character development. Gaghan seems to write dramas that creep into our consciousness instead of being forced, as in the disturbing vision he gave us in the movie “Traffic.” Unfortunately, in “Abandon,” this strategy has only hit-or-miss success. For thriller followers and moviegoers with a detective nature, the movie is for the most part ruined after they figure out the “surprise” ending, either by watching the trailer or within the first half-hour of the movie.

For those who do not predict or attempt to figure out the secret and are left in the dark until the end, the slow storyline may be rewarding. Gaghan succeeds with his psychological evolution of character well with those who follow until the end of the movie.

At the end of the movie, those actually surprised by the ending will find the subtle hints and character discrepancies as attributes of respectable film. It is in this later group where one will most likely find fans of “Abandon.”

For the thriller-savvy, any thought of seeing this movie should be “abandoned,” but for those with less-than-perfected detective skills, “Abandon” is a decent movie not to be entirely ignored.