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Friday
15May2009

Movie Review - 'Not Forgotten'

DateFriday, May 15, 2009 at 1:40AM
Not Forgotten

Starring Simon Baker, Paz Vega, and Chloe Moretz
Directed by Dror Soref
Rated R

notforgottenposter.jpg Sometimes you just throw your hands up and hope that the movie fell apart for all the right reasons. By that I mean that the story on screen really isn't the script the cast agreed to, and that the financing fell apart in the middle of production, causing certain sacrifices to be made that otherwise would clear up this whole mess.

But a movie should never have to explain itself afterward. That's why you give it two hours of your time to make its case.

Not Forgotten makes sense at the beginning, but it's a slow and steady decline after that. And this is why you hope that the real screenplay - the only that wasn't filmed for whatever reason - had more on the ball; you'd hate to come to terms with the fact that this is the movie everyone wanted to make.

It begins as a missing persons case, the story of an abducted girl (Chloe Moretz), who disappears at her youth soccer game. Her father and step-mother (Simon Baker and Paz Vega) naturally spring into action as the police in the border town of Del Rio, Texas begin their search for their daughter, a culprit, and clues. Needless to say, as a procedural, Silence of the Lambs this is not.

Not Forgotten runs a few theories at us - maybe it was the local sex offender, maybe it was a white slavery kidnapping, maybe the parents know more than they're letting on - and then there's goofiest of all possibilities, that it could be something supernatural. The police chase every clue, which seems to create open-and-shut cases on all fronts. That seems unlikely, doesn't it?

Here's the primary problem with all of these possible solutions: An abducted child is dramatic enough on its own. This month marks 30 yeras since Etan Patz went missing in New York City. Patz was the first missing child featured on the side of a milk carton. But regardless of that high profile, especially in the late 1970s, Patz was never seen again. Movies don't need to artificially enhance the tension of this situation by junking it up with mysticism and all the rest.

Not Forgotten, however, is somehow fully committed to every possibility, which only weakens a movie that isn't that strong to begin with. If it's going to be the parents on the hook, then build a movie around that. If it's this supernatural angle, then you should be able to build that, too, without needing three or four other motives.

Co-writer and director Dror Soref wants us to be riveted for 90 minutes and then blown away by whichever ending he chooses. And it could be any ending, of course, since any of the existing options are equally likely. Soref's approach doesn't work because he spends too little time developing one primary train of thought that we're not that interested in how it ends.

AuthorColin Boyd | | in | Print ArticlePrint Article | | CommentPost a Comment |

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