I was pleasantly surprised at the overall quality of this indie effort. From the opening scene the tension in the father/son relationship is palpable and they maintain the intensity w/o too much dialog to rely on. Kudos to both actors for very strong performances. The look and feel of this movie are spot on and the score is also an asset. The editing was a bit choppy and the film did seem to drag a little but there were no scenes that felt like they should have been left on the cutting room floor. I was confused at times and that added to the feeling that I just wanted them to get on with it, so to speak. Where the effort falls short is in the ending. It does build to a point and then the writing fails the actors. The last 20 minutes are cliché ridden and lack any originality. Come on, the pedophile who isn't who he says he is and oh yeah, by the way, he also happens to wear his collar backwards? The communications with dead people cross a line that Sixth Sense never did. We watch as the murderer has his head bashed in (4 violent blows) with a rather large stone and he disappears before the police arrive. It feels like they tried to address all the misdirections and somehow made things more confusing. I must say that the ending left a very bad taste in my mouth. This is sad mostly because of the very solid effort that preceded it. The writers and production staff deserve high marks for making a film that came so very close to being something special but in the end(literally) fell short. One final comment about the cast. What made this movie good were the performances from top to bottom. They all deserve praise and applause fr their efforts.
Review of The Disappeared
