Friday, April 24, 2009

Movie Review: The Missing Person

The Missing Person is a contemporary film noir by writer-director Noah Buschel. He takes a classic hard drinking gumshoe character and puts him in the modern world.

Michael Shannon, the oscar nominated crazy guy from Revolutionary Road plays the lead John Rosow. It opens with a phone call from a law firm that wants to hire him based on a recommendation from a former colleague. In classic noir form, the more he finds out the more moral shadings come into play and Rosow finds some connections to his own past.

I didn't really care for the film. I thought the characters had depth but no character (except for a cab driver). The dialog is stylized and stilted. There are some good lines and a funny scene with a Hollywood cop on a segway, but I thought there were too many expository conversations separated by traveling in between.

Most of the film was shot in extreme closeups and it didn't help that I was sitting close to the screen. The camera barely moved at all and the editing left several scenes on the screen a few seconds too long

I appreciated the modern noir attempt and the depth of character. They all do have motivations and the plot makes sense. The lead character is oh so lonely (and oh so drunk) and this is in fact explained, but I had a hard time caring about him. And
I'm not sure I was supposed to care about any of the others.

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