Sunday, February 19, 2023

Missing (2023)

Made by the same team that made Searching, the movie opens with a mention of that event on a Netflix show called Unfiction which is playing on a laptop.  The laptop belongs to June (Storm Reid), an 18-year-old who lives with her mother, Grace (Nia Long).  Her mother is going on a romantic vacation with her boyfriend, Kevin (Ken Leung).  After spending almost all the money her mother left for 'emergencies' on booze, June wakes up to an alarm telling her to pick her mother up at the airport.  She's late!  She waits several hours and there is no sign of her mother or Kevin.  Soon, it becomes clear that her mother never boarded the plane back to the United States and June contacts the US Embassy to get them on the case.

Though entertaining as it plays, the final solution upends the entire story.  The actions of the villain are inexplicable and the police must be completely incompetent.  How did they not know immediately that Grace never got on the plane in the first place?  You know, that whole passport thing.  Why would the police shoot an unarmed man?  Well, if he survived, he'd spill the beans and ruin the rest of the movie.  The villain is bright enough to have Grace vanish for a week, causing no suspicion, but then just blows it from there.  What the heck was happening during that week?

Mediocre.  A disappointing follow up to a much better movie.

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