Missing
by Costa-Gavras
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Charles Cioffi, Jack Lemmon, John Shea, Melanie Mayron, Sissy SpacekDirector: Costa-Gavras
Brand: UNI DIST CORP. (MCA)
Writer: Costa-Gavras
Producer: Edward Lewis
Producer: Jon Peters
Producer: Mildred Lewis
Writer: Donald Stewart
Writer: John Nichols
Writer: Thomas Hauser
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Spanish (Original Language); English (Subtitled)
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 122 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-11-23
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Universal Pictures
Movie Reviews of Missing
Movie Review: MISSING....balance and objectivity
Summary: 2 Stars
This film may have been originally intended as "left-wing propaganda," as some reviewers contend...or not. It may just be Costa-Gavras's simplistic worldview that is not necessarilly left or right wing but definitely victim-centric.
It's essentially another example of being dumb enough to get into something WAY over your head and not surviving to tell about it.
Charles/Charlie Hormann (Charles to his dad, Charlie to his wife) lives, writes and snoops around in a South American country (Chile, maybe! wink wink) that is imploding with civil war--a military regime has just overthrown the kind, compassionate Marxists who were most recently in power. Charlie, when not working on his illustrated fable starring a duck (yes, he's sensitive and artistic), takes a little road trip and runs into a guy who may as well be wearing a t-shirt that says, I AM A CIA ASSASSIN. ("Here's my card, in case you want someone whacked.") Charlie pesters this person with questions of a political nature, clumsily trying to get information about the coup but instead marking himself as a troublemaker.
Because the CIA usually knows what it's doing, Charlie then disappears. COULD IT HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH HIS STUPIDITY? As it happens, yes.
His dad flies down, and this is really the best aspect of the film: Jack Lemmon is great. Mr. Hormann at first gives the American government--represented by embassy personnel--the benefit of the doubt when they, Sergeant Schulz-like, claim to know NOTHING. But it eventually becomes obvious that they're just trying to be nice and cooperative until Mr. Hormann goes back home--which only makes Hormann more determined. (His daughter-in-law/Charlie's wife, Sissy Spacek, treats the authorities with cynicism and hostility,and Hormann eventually begins to see that she has her reasons.) Eventually Mr. Hormann has to admit to himself that his country's representatives may be up to no good, and that Charlie was indeed the victim of foul play.
Your heart really goes out to Lemmon when he tells the ambassador, "I just want my boy back."
But sympathy for Charlie? I didn't have much. This is the equivalent of a person who wants to go swimming in shark-infested waters, even though everyone around him warns him not to, and he just INSISTS, and then of course gets eaten...okay, is the shark the bad guy here?
Thousands of young people disappeared in Chile when the movie takes place, and yes, American hands were bloodied in that upheaval. At the same time, there were sound reasons to try to contain Marxism in this hemisphere. The ends don't justify the means, but this is the way Chileans played the game on their own turf, so I don't know how much input or control our guys actually had.
Charlie learned the hard way that you don't poke a stick into a hornets' nest. And the "I'm an American" entitlement argument? If you're an American, you should know better than to assume safety while traipsing around 3rd World countries on the verge of collapse.
Summary of Missing
A U.S. BUSINESSMAN AND HIS DAUGHTER-IN-LAW SEARCH CHILE FOR HIS LEFT-WING JOURNALIST SON.The peril facing a lone American amid Third World political turmoil is elegantly communicated in this important film from Costa-Gavras (Z), adapted by the director and Donald Stewart from Thomas Hauser's nonfiction book. The key to its power onscreen stems from the decision not to center the action merely on the disappearance of Charles Horman (John Shea), but also on the search for him by his father Ed (Jack Lemmon)--and on Ed's discovery of a son he never knew. The Oscar-winning script flows freely between that search and Charles's earlier experiences in the unnamed country (in the true account, Chile). Providing a link between those two stories is Charles's wife Beth (Sissy Spacek), who follows her father-in-law around a country in chaos, teeming with reckless authority and disinterested American diplomats (epitomized by ace character actor David Clennon). The film, which was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar and won the Cannes Film Festival's top prize, is certainly manipulative, but it works because of its finely detailed human elements. Usually emotionally extroverted, Lemmon gives one of his finest performances playing against that type--here, he's a controlled, intellectual man who learns more about his son, and his country, than he ever dreamed he would. --Doug Thomas
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