Vanished (2006)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Pretty Good

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

I had to turn it off, even after having suffered through a dozen commercials for Quik-Step Handiwipes and Biochecks Wheat Trim Cereal. Enough is enough.The commercials did a much better job of brainwashing and inducing hallucinations -- my house seemed cleaner afterward and I'd lost forty pounds -- than does the voodoo cult that this movie revolves around and which is completely immaterial to the plot. (It might as well be kidnapping for money.) Slender, sassy, and nicely assembled A. J. Cook and her TV-handsome and very rich lawyer husband take a vacation on the Caribbean island of San Carlos. During a meal, handsome hubby excuses himself and leaves the table, never to be seen again until the end. He should have known better than to drink the water.There are no ransom notes, no nothing. And, as is usual in these movies, the police response is routine and uninterested. Few people speak English. Cook rushes with increasing anxiety from one possible resource to another. The cops, an avaricious taxi driver, a private investigator. The FBI is drawn in. A special investigative team puts her in jail. She's drugged. She's kidnapped herself and almost raped by the leader of a local cult who was once a criminal but has found redemption, he tells her as he tears at her clothes.A. J. Cook is easy on the eyes but her range is limited and she can't carry the movie by herself. She projects fear by shouting insults at whoever she's frightened of. That's how you avoid getting hurt -- you heap your calumny on the person threatening you. When she hears some unpleasant news she wrinkles her nose as if she'd just gotten a whiff of an offensive odor. There are all sorts of red herrings and twists which I won't bother to describe.On the plus side, some nice photography of San Juan, Puerto Rico's Old Town, full of colonial architecture, much of it pink. It's not typical of Puerto Rico. If you want to see what the rest of the city and the island look like, and if you're curious enough to bother, check out Puerto Rico Real Estate on Google. Much of what's in my price range looks almost as dilapidated as this abandoned railway car I live in, but you can get used to anything.

This silly movie starts out well but deteriorates fast.In an age of Natalee Holloway, and with past films like the excellent French-Dutch "Vanished," the disappearance of someone in an exotic locale seems plausible and offers intriguing dramatic possibilities.A.J. Cook tries her best but is saddled with a ridiculous plot full of red herrings and dead-ends. I was so bored by the end of this stinker I no longer cared who had Jake or why.I just wanted the main players to die so the movie would be over and my 10-year-old could go to bed. He claimed he wanted to stay up to see how this detritus turned out and then ranked it an 8 -- probably just to spite me!

The writer of this film, made for television, Mark Dorff, is also the author of another beauty, "Break-In". Both films were shot in Puerto Rico, and both features ask the viewer to stretch his, or her, imagination trying to absorb implausible premises that are beyond imagination.This one, "Vanished", has an aura of the occult that doesn't make much sense. A vacationing honeymoon husband suddenly disappears from a bar after enjoying cocktails with his beautiful wife. What follows then is a young woman, alone in a strange place, where everyone she turns to is either nasty, or has a hidden agenda to harm her. We have seen all this better done before. As directed by Michael Switzer, a man active in television, "Vanished" will not add anything to the careers of the people involved in this picture. On the plus side, we are taken to Old San Juan with its colonial architecture, and charming elegance that turns out to be the most interesting aspect of the movie.

A half century ago, Cyril Parkinson wrote an article for "The Economist," where he first espoused "Parkinson's Law:" "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." This is usually stated in a slightly-abbreviated fashion, "work expands to fill the time available." Even today, with the advent of computers, there is a corollary, "data expands to fill the space available for storage."With the expansion of cable and satellite television, and the tremendous increase in the number of channels offered, with stations such as "Lifetime" and the plethora of others, there is a new corollary we can add to Mr. Parkinson's dictum: "Mediocre made-for-TV movies expand in number to fill the many hours (and stations) available for their airings."A lot of cable time is filled with re-runs of movies/sitcoms/dramas previously produced, some gossip and reality shows, and late-hour paid programming/infomercials. However, there is always a need for more films to fill the time/spaces available.In our present society, that is the only possibly reason for the production and airing of this flick. I'm not certain the description as "mediocre" isn't an insult to those programs/productions truly warranting this description. This one seems somewhat lower, in all aspects: story; performances; and even the climax and explanation for all the nonsense one had to sit through for most of the two hours. This "climax" was woefully weak, even considering the lower standards of this genre.I caught it on a day when I was fighting a bronchial malady, and having to make certain I got rid of it before an important trip coming soon. I left the program on since I was slightly sedated, but also with that fascination this type of show delivers: sort of drawing you in with curiosity as to whether it just MIGHT GET BETTER. The latter was not the case here. Gove it 2* versus 1, since the lead actress was attractive to view, and because, according to the location info, they at least filmed it in Puerto Rico instead of some back lot or Hispanic neighborhood in Canada.