My wife got another invitation to the special screening of a rather new movie starring Gerard Butler one day before its premier date which we accepted graciously. Despite the unfriendly weather on that night, I still manage to get to CGV cinema Grand Indonesia ahead of the 7PM registration schedule. After few interesting trailers of upcoming new movies in CGV, the movie finally began at 8PM.
Brief Story Line
Set in the year 1900 in Scotland, three men were assigned to guard a lighthouse on Flannan Isles for 6 weeks. The leader was the veteran Thomas (Peter Mullan - My Name is Joe etc) accompanied by the experienced James (Gerard Butler - How to Train Your Dragon:The Hidden World, London Has Fallen etc) and the new recruit & youngest Donald (Connor Swindles - Sex Education TV series). All three started their shift after taking over the previous team.
On their second day on the remote island, they found something mysterious which would put an incredible moral dilemma to the 3 of them. This founding would be the start of various complications they had to face and change their lives in ways they had never imagined.
So how would the story conclude? Find them all in this quite suspenseful psychological thriller.
End of Brief Story Line
Wow this was a quite intense movie. As I have seen the trailer earlier, I already knew that this seemed like a psychological thriller and therefore I was ready for a movie which had a slow pace. The earlier part was the usual characters introduction which did not feel overly long. In fact it did not take too much time to get to the intense part when they first found the mysterious thing. From that moment onwards we felt the move raised its intensity a bit, combined with something dramatic.
There were also some very suspenseful moments where my wife and I and the rest of the event invitees were unintentionally holding our breaths. We did not realize it until the moment was over and we felt a sense of relief. The movie had some really intense and emotional moments even till the end.
For this kind of genre to be great, it would have to rely on the acting of the main cast. And boy they were really awesome. Gerard Butler was amazing and truly convincing in his portrayal of the character. Meanwhile Peter Cullan was fantastic and had his moments as well. The youngest cast Connor Swindles was also able to equal his 2 more senior counterparts and did not seem out of place. There were few more minor but very important characters that provided the extra edge.
One definite plus point from my experience seeing this movie was the great sound effects which gave us the necessary ingredient to complete the intense feeling. The musical score and one nice Scottish song was also sung by the cast, mainly by Gerard Butler who also served as one of the producers of the movie. There was one confusing moment in the beginning where the title seemed to be "Keepers" and after I checked on the internet, it turned out that the movie's original title was indeed that, but later it was replaced with The Vanishing.
Being a movie which was said to be inspired by true events, certainly was a great factor that made me intrigued. This was quite a dramatization that amazed me. And as a psychological thriller, it was pretty much what I expected and hopefully audience could also understand that it would be focusing on the suspense, mystery and intensity aided by some powerful performances. Thus we should not expect a fast paced full action kind of movie.
Overall it was quite satisfying and entertaining movie. It might not be what general audience are looking for, but it definitely fit the category of movie interesting enough. Not a bad move by Gerard Butler who seemed to be quite infamous in the past years for playing typical Hollywood action movies that were mostly disliked by critics. I think he took the option of producing this as it was kind of a folklore in Scottish culture. So if you are in the mood for something different than the last entry of those superheroes movie, then this could be a nice alternative.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
A big thank you from us to Rivki from CGV for the invitation to this event. We really appreciate it and look forward to future events.
Below are some pictures from the event:
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