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"GONE"
(2012) (Amanda Seyfried, Wes Bentley) (PG-13)

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QUICK TAKE:
Suspense/Thriller: A young woman who was kidnapped, but escaped two years earlier now fears her sister has been abducted by the same serial killer.
PLOT:
Two years ago, Jill Parrish (AMANDA SEYFRIED) claims to have been abducted from her bed and taken out to the thick forest outside of Portland where her abductor placed her into a deep, dark hole and threatened to kill her. She escaped and was eventually picked up by police, but could not lead them to where the hole was and she could not identify her attacker because she never really got a good look at him. Detective Powers (DANIEL SUNJATA), the cop assigned to her case, ended up not believing her and halted any further investigation despite Jill insisting that there had been other victims.

Jill still walks the forest, looking for the site where she was brutalized. She is on medication to control her anxieties and lives with her sister, Molly (EMILY WICKERSHAM). When Molly goes missing, having been abducted from her bed in the middle of the night, Molly implores Powers and his commanding officer, Lt. Ray Bozeman (MICHAEL PARE), to help but they refuse. Only new Det. Peter Hood (WES BENTLEY) seems to have any sympathy.

Gun in hand, Jill decides to take the law into her own hands and find her sister. When Powers hears of her threatening various citizens who may or may not be connected to the case, he orders Jill arrested. She then enlists the aid of Molly's boyfriend, Billy (SEBASTIAN STAN), and her co-worker, Sharon (JENNIFER CARPENTER), in her quest.

OUR TAKE: 1 out of 10
Our reviewing policy for films that aren't shown in advance to critics is that we'll only provide a paragraph or two about the film's artistic merits.

"Gone" is one of those throwaway mystery-thrillers that is so full of plot holes and logic gaps (especially late in its running time) that the audience spends way too much time asking things like "Well, why didn't he just..." or "How did she..." or "Couldn't the police rather easily..." If I were to finish any of those questions, I would give away the inanity that it is the plot and its resolution and thus spoil the movie. Believe me, I want to.

Amanda Seyfried stars as Jill, who swears she was abducted a year earlier from her bed, bound, gagged, and dumped in a hole in a forest outside of Portland. She escaped from that hole and has been paranoid ever since that her assailant will come back for her. The problem is, local police have never believed her story. One morning, she gets off the night shift from her job at a diner and comes home to find her college-age sister missing from her bed. She immediately thinks it's her attacker. The police, of course, don't believe her again. Even worse, once she starts waving a handgun around the city pointing it at every scummy male character who looks like Steve Buscemi, James Cromwell, or Tim Blake Nelson, the cops start hunting her.

The film runs just over 90 minutes, but it feels twice that. Essentially, 60 of those minutes are either Seyfried running or driving while talking to various characters on her cell phone, all of whom implore her to "stop running" and "turn yourself in." If she has this conversation with one character, she has it with 10. This is a coincidence, because I rate this movie a 1 out of 10. (T. Durgin)




Reviewed February 24, 2012 / Posted February 24, 2012


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