It didn’t find enough audience to warrant a review from me, but I went back in 2018 and really liked ‘The Search’. It was a follow-up, and the footage consisted of everything that was displayed on the father’s computer screen. Everything from photos and simple girlfriend web pages to complex chats and video calls. The performances are heartfelt, the story has interesting twists and turns, the final villain is cleverly believable, and the ending makes sense. Here comes another disappearance mystery, a sort of sequel, “Missing,” featuring the same screen-based style. The performance was again heartfelt, and the story has some interesting twists and turns…that’s about the extent of my compliments.
Teenage June (Storm Reid) takes a week off with her mother, Grace (Nia Long). She’s not thrilled that her mother is going on an extended trip to Colombia with her new boyfriend Kevin (Ken Leung), who is lame, but anyway, it’s time to party! But things take a turn for the worse for her when the party is over and June picks up her mother at the airport. Neither Grace nor Kevin get off the plane. June soon files a missing persons report, but she is frustrated with the FBI’s slow progress. She decided to track down her mother herself from her home in Los Angeles.
June has the advantage of being smart and computer savvy, but she is at a disadvantage because she cannot speak Spanish and cannot be physically in Colombia. She hires local errand boy Javi (Joacium de Almeida) to conduct an investigation. He can’t get security footage from the hotel, but learns that Kevin bought a padlock from a local hardware store. What was Kevin doing to buy the padlock?Can this relative stranger be trusted in any way?Will June ever see her mother alive again? There are so many steps from the first question to answering the last question.
For a while, “Missing” is just as compelling as “Searching.” Reid and de Her Almeida’s performance is as desperate and desperate as John Cho and Debra Messing’s performances in the first film. The story takes a similarly winding road, but rarely takes an implausible turn until the final act, and with his one dramatic reveal near the 90% mark, the film falls apart. Obviously we want to avoid spoilers, but we have a villain, and this villain is terrible. It was a terrible performance that didn’t match the tone of the rest of the film, and I didn’t believe this character was smart enough to mastermind a plan that seemed to have pulled off perfectly up to that point.
“Missing” is another promising recent thriller that can’t stick to landing. ) didn’t take long to mess around with either. I don’t want to take away from what this movie does right, it’s a lot, but the viewing experience just plummets in the span of one clumsy shot. I recommend a lot of mystery movies that have great characters and settings and aren’t always rewarded with fun logic.1985’s Clues is one of my favorite movies. As for this movie, try to catch it quickly.
Grade: B-
“Missing” is rated PG-13 for some strong violence, language, teenage drinking, and thematic material. Running time is 111 minutes.
Please contact Bob Garver at rrg251@nyu.edu.
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