Film Review – Last Seen Alive

“The Vanishing” was a 1988 Dutch production that surprised viewers when it was released. While it initially appeared to be a standard mystery concerning the whereabouts of a kidnapped woman and the husband desperate to find her, the feature ended up in some extremely dark places, including a sinister ending that’s one of the all-time greats in disturbing cinema. Hollywood eventually remade the picture in 1993, which didn’t work (making a key mistake by altering the resolution), and they seem to be trying again with “Last Seen Alive,” which isn’t an official reworking of “The Vanishing,” changing just enough to avoid a lawsuit. Once again, here’s a tale of a man driven to extremes while looking for his missing wife, only here the lead actor is Gerard Butler, which all but guarantees any sort of psychological nuance and suspenseful activity isn’t going to be part of the viewing experience. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com