Brief Story Line
A couple whose relationship was in a bit of strain, Will Spann (Gerard Butler - Copshop, The Vanishing etc) and his wife Lisa (Jaimie Alexander - Blindspot TV series, Thor: The Dark World etc) were driving to Lisa's parents' house. When they were stopping at a gas station, Lisa seemed to be talking to a guy later on revealed to be called Knuckles (Ethan Embry - Can't Hardly Wait, That Thing You Do! etc) and went on missing after that.
Will decided to call 911 and police detective Paterson (Russel Hornsby - Creed 2, Proven Innocent TV series etc) started to investigate. However, the investigation seemed to take a different turn as new facts were found.
So how would the story conclude? You can find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Aside from the premise which I felt interesting, I wanted to give a try since the lead cast was Gerard Butler whose some of his movies were pretty entertaining. This time, he played a husband who had to take matters in his own hand when his wife was missing. The thing is though, the opening scene was something that I thought was not really useful. Yes, this kind of formula might be suitable for other films (or episode of TV series), but I somehow felt it was not the appropriate in here.
Anyway, when the couple was introduced and Lisa was missing, the movie started to feel intense and suspenseful with Gerard seemed convincing enough as the panicking husband. And the part where he started to search for her while going through various challenges including the somewhat disbelief of Lisa's parents (played by Cindy Hogan and Bruce Altman) was pretty good. Until mid of the movie, the story was progressing in a fast enough pace and really raised curiosity. However, once I reached a certain point, I somehow felt the movie became a bit dull and too generic. As a thriller movie, I actually thought it would be a bit more psychological. So when there were some action which were just OK and certainly not helped by the poor CGI effect towards the end, I was less satisfied by it.
After watching the movie, I seem to have a familiar feeling with the 1997 film Breakdown which also told a story of a wife kidnapped on their trip and the husband (played by Kurt Russel) trying his best to find her. While that movie was critically acclaimed, this one sadly was destroyed by critics. For me, despite its shortcomings, the film was not that bad and still enjoyable enough. Btw, this movie was directed by Brian Goodman who is also an actor and appeared in quite a lot of movies and TV series, but his experience as director was only of What Doesn't Kill You and Black Butterfly.
Overall this might not be the best there is for such premise, but if you like Gerard Butler and are ok with the attributes I mentioned above, then you can give it a try. It is not a Netflix original movie but they did acquire the right to distribute this (it has been released in US theaters back in June 2022 with poor box office performance).
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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