Film Review: GONE (2012)

Director: Heitor Dhalia
Writers: Allison Burnett
Running time: 86 mins (approx)
Certification (UK): 15

Genre: Drama/Mystery/Thriller
UK Release date: 12^th April 2012

Watched on Sky+ Saturday 13^th April 2013.

PLEASE NOTE: THERE MAY BE UNINTENTIONAL SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW.

This is one of those films that looks good on the cover but once you get it home it doesn’t quite live up to expectations. It’s a good premise; an abduction and an unbelieved witness, but it’s been done before and, more importantly, it’s been done better before. It’s not all bad though, there are some good performances and there are a couple of interesting twists along the way. But I digress, here’s a very brief summary before I hit you with both barrels on the thoughts front.

When waitress Jill (Amanda Seyfried) returns from work one morning, she finds her sister, Molly (Emily Wickersham), is missing. This is particularly troubling for Jill because she had been abducted in the past and escaped. This has left her with psychological problems to which the police are not very sympathetic to. She believes the man that abducted her before has come back and taken Molly. She takes it to Detective Powers (Daniel Sunjata) who does not believe her (of course). So she decides to take matters into her own hands and sets out to find Molly herself. What follows is a chase; the Police looking for Jill and Jill looking for her sister and the man that abducted her. She even calls on the help of a colleague, Sharon Ames (Jennifer Carpenter). She believes the killer will strike at sundown and time is running out.

It’s a film that I believe is trying to be too clever for its own good; there are too many coincidences and blind alleys. On the performance front, I thought Amanda Seyfried did a good job but nobody else really stood out. Sadly I found it really hard to sympathise with her character because the threat appears to be in her head for much of the film. There’s sadly not much else I can say about it; I’ve maybe been a little generous with the score, but Portland did look good on the screen and the cinematography was pretty good over all. Not one I’ll be watching again but I’m glad I saw it for Seyfried’s performance if nothing else.

SteelMonster’s verdict: NOT RECOMMENDED

My score: 5.7/10.

IMDb Score: 5.7/10 (based on 18,311 votes when this review was written).
http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt1838544/

MetaScore: 36/100: (Based on 15 critic reviews provided by Metacritic.com at the time of going to press).

Rotten Tomatoes ‘Tomatometer’ Score: 11/100 (based on 62 reviews counted at the time of going to press).

Rotten Tomatoes ‘Audience’ Score: 43/100 (based on 34,738 user ratings counted at the time of going to press).
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gone_2012/

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FAVOURITE QUOTES:
Powers: She stuck with her story. And now every time a girl goes missing, she thinks it's her guy and she's in here breaking my balls.
Peter Hood: She can always move in with me. I like 'em a little crazy.
*
Custodian: What if you don't show up?
Jill: It means I'm dead.
*
Jill: Are you going to say hi?
Molly: Maybe tomorrow after my final. Right now I've got to become an expert on marginal productivity theory.
Jill: I'd ask you what that is, but then I'm afraid you'd tell me. 

Jill: What's a few meds between sisters?
*
Jill: He never existed. It was all in my head.

LINKS:
(Note: All were working at the time of going to press)
Trailer: