Missing (The Criterion Collection) [DVD]

This is the 1982 political thriller based on a true story. Directed, produced, and co-writted by Costa-Gavras and starring Jack Lemmon as Ed Horman, John Shea, as Charles Horman, and Sissy Spacek as Beth Horman.The movie begins with Ed's (Charles' father) arrival in a South American country to help Beth (Charles' wife) search for Charles who dissappeared during a coup. At this point, Charles has been missing for two weeks, and Beth, who is desparate but exhausted from the runaround she has gotten from both the US and the foreign government officials is disappointed with Ed's attitude towards her and Charles who he views as political radicals. Despite their differences, they start their search. The more Ed learns the closer they become until they overcome their differences and Ed gains respect for his son who he realizes was a hard working writer and film maker.This is a taut thriller intelligently handled by the film makers and performed superbly by Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek. You feel just as frantic as they are as you search through the hospitals, morgues, and cellars of this South American town looking for their loved one, and praying for a miracle. This film is fast paced and serious entertainment. I give it 5 stars.

This was a great film and I was kind of shocked when I watched last night. First I had a doubt since <Z> the movie Costa Gavras made back in his country was kind of boring perhaps because that was when I was very young when I watched. But this one was not. It was gripping and sad, perhaps scary to death as well. It's not because this is a horror movie. It's a political thriller I might say.Sissy Spacek' husbans and her herself were living in Chile and one day Sissy's husband just dissapeared all of a sudden. His father comes from America to find him as well. Team up with his daughter in law, they try to find him desperately only to figure out that he is nowhere.Throughout the film, Vangelis' great music effects the mood so much. There are actually two different kinds of music he made. 1. Very soft and tender keyboard sound that sustains and touches the charactors' emotions 2. Showing the charactor's tensed and nervous mind by using futuristic sound also using keyboard sound just like one of the BLADE RUNNER music that he also worked for.It is a great shame that the dvd movie was mono that I can only hear mono.Jack Lemmon was always a great actor. He is one of the few actor who really acts with his heart. Mostely he worked as a comedian but a few works he've done were all so succesful such as <Days of Wine and Roses><Glengarry Glenross ><The China Syndrome> he was oscar worth actor in them all.In this movie, he was acting this heart chilling performance as well. Whenever he delivers each lines, he just chew and chew before he actually says it.It is always delightful to see Sissy Spacek again. I only remember her from <Carrie> although I have liked all of her movies. She is just getting better nad better each time I see her new movies. I mean not new new but whenever I open new dvds that I own already.This movie is so great because of the music, performance, directing, script and phase. All together memorable.If only I can watch this movie again with stereo sound, I can pay anything.

You do not need to support Allende's ideas or so called “leftist” governments in order to like this movie. It happened, it was brutal, and this movie shows this is dramatic ways that are enjoyable yet crude enough to represent the reality of such regimes.If not for the history, get it for the story.SPOILER follows.I was particularly impressed with how well Jack Lemmon portrays a father who is initially oblivious to the involvement of his own country, only to find himself in a dissonant state of mind when he finds out the deep extent of that involvement, and, particularly, how he wouldn't be helped at all when he needed it the most, after the mess was already done and obvious.You think of Charles Horman as the naive, but the story shows how governments can work in detriment of the citizen, even past the degree where it does not need to (or at least shouldn't be allowed to at all), no matter how “bigger interests” (lawful or unlawful) are involved, as the events at the very end of the movie show (when he just wants his son… his body, that is).Finally, we see a father, living comfortably with his beliefs, his political prejudices (as in judgments and ideas formed by adopted ideology), leave the simple and childish beliefs behind to understand—in the hard way—the pragmatism of the interests involved in big events such as those surrounding the Operation Condor. In short, that the world does not work in “easy to digest” dichotomies of black and white, good and evil, which is something so many people seem to miss when talking about politics and world diplomacy, despite it being a fairly obvious conclusion.

In upper level Spanish classes (III or IV), this film provides a solid background in the political climate of 1970's Chile. It is suspenseful & since it is based on a true story, students are captivated. The main character, Ed Horman (Jack Lemmon), is the father of Charles Horman, a journalist who, according to the Chilean government, asks too many questions and probes a little too aggressively into "matters that don't concern him." It is an intense film, so if showing it in a classroom, I recommend high level high-school juniors or seniors. It would also be appropriate for a high level history class. South America still tends to take a back seat to European or Asian history. This is a shame, since we share a hemisphere with these countries. This film gives deeper insight into political realities of our neighbors to the south.

This is an excellent film. Based on a true story, it presents the absolute horrors of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile during the 1970s. The presentation and the acting are just excellent. One of Jack Lemmon's best roles, and how different from “Daphne” in “Some like it hot”! The image is not quite as sharp you might expect from a Blu-ray, certainly not an important improvement on the old DVD.This is a film that will haunt the viewer for some time but it is the kind of film that leaves a deep satisfaction of having seen in at the end.

Costa Gavras provides a vivid, frightening and compelling fact-based reconstruction of three Americans caught up in a right wing military coup in a fictitious but very believable South American country. A young couple with distinctly liberal tendencies come to the attention of the new authorities and the young man's father (played by Jack Lemmon) who has distinctly conservative tendencies comes to the country when his son disappears. He is initially hostile to the freewheeling lifestyle of the couple and is annoyed that he has to intervene as he cannot understand why they were in the country in the first place but he gradually relates more closely to his daughter in law (played by Sissy Spacek) and can see her point of view. They soon realise that the coup is not a purely internal matter but it had the fingerprints of the CIA all over it. Fear descends across the country, nightime curfews are viciously enforced, hundreds of people are arrested for no good reason and the bodies of innocent people increasingly fill the streets and the hospitals as the authorities crush any dissent real or impagined. Against this background the couple desperately carry out their search until it reaches a tragic conclusion.Lemmon and Spacek are superb as the searchers and the film's portrayal of a country falling into the hands of an oppressive fascist regime is exciting, frightening and memorable. All concerned with the work are to be congratulated in creating a film of the highest quality.

Undoubtedly Missing turns out to be a great piece of cinema, one of the brightest works of political film-maker Costa-Gavras. Based on true events, it successfully captures the chaotic atmosphere of Chile during the first weeks of Pinochet government. Crisp and compelling, the story is based on the vain struggle of an American businessman Ed Horman to recover his son, who vanished without a trace during the helter-skelter following the right-wing political coup.The general mood of the movie fits the story and its backdrop well with a fine score by Vangelis. Acting two controversial characters, Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek both deliver dazzling performances. Costa-Gavras uses an ingenious technique of flashbacks to give the people more deep background and allows them to draw conclusions from what they may have missed. This is the reason that the movie lacked a bit of clarity to the end and it causes little ambiguity.Contrary to the movie, that Universal DVD is such a "bare to bones" disc. There are no audio options (English mono only). The transfer is poor, pictures are grainy, and of course it lacks special features. What a shame!!! I think this is a kind of movie that really does deserve special edition treatment...

The message from this superb production has to be "It doesn't matter what you do so long you do it". The dynamo that drives the world is trade and so if it suits your interests to support a military coup in a foreign land get in there and (repeat) do it!The "winners" are in the driving seat here: the boys in their uniforms with their automatic weapons can have fun potting off people during the hours of curfew (and at other times behind close doors), the diplomats can play loose with the truth, the industrialists will fill their order books for fresh weapons and ammunition and so on.I cannot agree with another reviewer (3 star) that this film is slanderous towards the USA. Its documentation based upon a reality does not preclude other states of the world from being equally duplicitous and cruel in their handling of foreign affairs.One is left with only one adjective to describe the world our species has created: "SAD".

Very moving and real account of the Pinochet's military dictatorship behavior in Chile . Here is one of the examples of the CIA and USA involvement in the violation of Human Rights at the time..and before the coup . The repression affected anyone regardless the nationality of the person.Here he was a north American journalist who suffer under the regime. Not far from the terrorist nowadays. With the difference this was a state terrorism .See the film Highly recommended