Gone

When a film doesn’t have a showing for critics before its planned release date, 99% of the time it’s for the same reason: i.e. its rubbish. Unsurprisingly, Heitor Dhalia’s Gone doesn’t buck that trend. Jill (Amanda Seyfried) is a young woman residing in Portland who is recovering from an alleged kidnapping the previous year. I say alleged as the police never found any evidence of said crime and believe that Jill made the whole thing up. Soon enough Jill’s sister goes missing and believing to be the work of the same man Jill escaped from she goes on the hunt for him in order to rescue her sister. The catch being that she gets no help from the police who again believe whats happening is a figment of her imagination. Dhalia’s back catalogue is full of Brazilian dramas and he certainly doesn’t have the chops to produce anything remotely thrilling here. Not that he’s helped by Allison Burnett’s script which moves at a snail’s pace and the fact that it’s obvious from the opening frames of the film that Jill was kidnapped originally any interest from the audience in that possible “did it or didn’t it happen?” side of the story is immediately lost. Seyfried herself isn’t bad, but this is hardly going to help her career wise. On the positive side the rainy Oregon setting adds a bit of gloominess to the proceedings and Wes Bentley’s copper keeps us guessing as to what side he’s really on. Overall though this is just too plodding to get the pulse going and the ending is as limp as they come.

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict
Going….going…..Gone! Rating: 5/10.