Review – Missing

Ah, this takes me back to the days when U.S. involvement in South American right wing military coups wasn’t quite the matter of public knowledge it became years after the fact. For that matter, those were also the days when the public might actually be expected to give a crap about U.S. involvement in coups. As usual with Hollywood productions, the tale of the overthrow of Allende is told almost exclusively from the perspective of U.S. citizens. However, in this case it’s done to make a point rather than just to make the story more accessible to domestic audiences. At several points throughout the picture we’re reminded that the protagonist, a middle-aged businessman played by Jack Lemon, wouldn’t be paying any attention to Chilean affairs if his son hadn’t somehow gotten caught up in them and ended up missing. Hey, whatever it takes to get folks to care about what’s being done in their names behind their backs. Though this is a big-budget Hollywood production, it still has much of the look and feel of director Costa-Gavras’s earlier work. Worth seeing