Missing

This review contains minor spoilers.

I'll start off by saying how much I have enjoyed Mike Storch's work. I gave Gnomes 93/100 in its review last year, and it was third in my top ten list of 2004 movies. I also liked his three shorts, Maybe Next Year, Mistake, and especially The Memory, which have all attained respectable scores. So when Missing was announced for a Spring release with Storch himself directing it, there was no doubt that I was pleasantly looking forward to it. With such stupidly high expectations for a relatively short movie (we're talking about ten minutes, give or take) this pleased me. It may not have done enough to reach the 90/100 threshold, and it may not have quite reached my expectations, but I still really enjoyed watching it. Just a word of warning before I continue though: even though I've stated that this review only contains "minor" spoilers, you are better off watching Missing before reading the rest of my review to avoid being given a little hint. If you are unsure whether you actually want to see it or not, check out the score--it should be self-explanatory.

Finally, the long wait for the next big movie is over with Missing, a chilling drama written none other than Andres De La Hoz, and directed by Mike Storch, whom I was praising earlier. This is a good follow-up from Storch. While they are both similar in a number of ways, Missing still has its differences when compared to Gnomes (not including the obvious, that there are no gnomes here), as Missing seemed to concentrate more on what we see to help us sympathise with the victim. I felt that the most effective scenes which did this were the panning shots of blood-stained tools, showing the pain and gruesome torture he has coming. Gnomes did this with less graphic or dark images--instead it achieved this using effective dialogue.

But that's not to say the dialogue in Missing is insignificant or weak. All the voice actors, especially Justin Wawrzonek as the kidnapper, deliver their lines wonderfully, and the dialogue was just as good for the majority of the runtime. The only thing in the writing that annoyed me was that I had a couple of lingering, unanswered questions. They may not be that important to the overall movie, but I couldn't help feeling a little let down. There was a part of me that wanted to get the full picture after I saw the ending. Having being surprised by the neat twist, and it's a good one especially if you are unaware that one is coming (it's a bit late now if you ignored my warning at the start of the review), there were still a few things lurking in my mind which did not leave me as satisfied as I wanted to have been.

Storch shows some of his recognisable strengths, which shone in Gnomes, in here too. Aided by the dramatic and nerving music (with some help from Andrew James Thomas, who also helped Storch in Gnomes), he seems to be able to create tension almost flawlessly. The locations help set the right atmosphere with black being a key colour; contrast the dark, dull, black room where the victim is being held to the yellow, pleasant outdoors of Pinelake Resort, and you will see what I mean. Even the dark, grey walls of the police station look bright compared to that room. Storch certainly has a knack for this, mirroring his success seen in Gnomes, where he used the tense music and the noticeably limiting colour range really well.

While I am praising all its strong points, I still can't say I prefer this over Gnomes. While both did not give hugely satisfying endings, at least Gnomes wrapped up its loose ends, whereas Missing gave me too much to think about. Maybe Andres deliberately left it open-ended, I don't know, but even if it was, I still wanted more. Don't get me wrong, I liked the twist, but it was just too open for my liking. The rest of the movie however more than makes up for the slightly disappointing ending, and judging by the number of positive reviews of this movie, I am not the only one applauding it. Storch again proves to everyone that he can do drama, and this is a title he should be proud of. Of course, there is one person I haven't given enough credit to, and that's Andres for writing a fine script. He too should be pleased with the end result, and I hope to see more coming from him in the future. Missing lacks that extra bit of polish to make it a truly memorable film, but its nerving and chilling scenes still make this a must-see. Hopefully, the film will start a trend. With the lack of big movies released, this should help motivate those lazy directors out there and help them finish their movies.

Score: 85/100