I vaguely recall a lousy sitcom plot years ago where a dude stages an event that puts a woman in danger so he can save her, and therefore win her heart. Little did I know in 2022 someone would try to twist that concept into an action flick. Who needs couples counseling when you can rescue your abducted wife? “Last Seen Alive” finds a fractious couple near the end of a long car trip when missing persons hijinks ensue. Grumpy real estate developer Gerard Butler turns into Liam Neeson, except his special skills don’t include avoiding an absolutely ridiculous conclusion.
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The lonely bleakness of a lighthouse on an island off the coast of Scotland is the perfect setting for the equally bleak “The Vanishing” (2019). The keepers of the light – through no fault of their own – suddenly have a secret to keep as well. Things rapidly degenerate from there, in a Hitchcock-like descent into violence and paranoia, unfolding like so many other movies where a handful of people are trapped somewhere. But there’s something missing. It’s like a slasher movie without a slasher. Things seem to be building toward something, but we never get there. It’s us who are trapped.
If you skip your daughter’s cello recital to do big-time lawyer stuff, some CIA-trained psychopath is going to kill half of Philadelphia. That is the main lesson to be learned from “Law Abiding Citizen”(2009), in which Jamie Foxx is the big-time lawyer and Gerard Butler is the CIA-trained psychopath. I might be oversimplifying. I was too caught up in all the big, sloppy revenge Butler was taking on an American legal system that promotes expediency over justice (I am a long-time fan of big, sloppy revenge). If the sloppiness makes you feel guilty, the ending will bail you out.
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