A Mother's Protection
Rene (Daphne Zuniga - The Wrong Babysitter) has always been a protective mum and despite her daughter, Kaitlin (Brigette Davidovici), being 18 she still can't stop being protective and worrying about her. Her friend, Lisa (Lauren Bowles - Her Last Will), is completely the opposite and happily allows her daughter, Matty (Gage Golightly - The Long Shot), to have fun and make mistakes. When Rene's over protective nature causes Kaitlin embarrassment, whilst on spring break, it leads to her rebelling and going missing with Matty. Being the protective mum Rene will stop at nothing till she finds her daughter but in doing so not only discovers some truths about Kaitlin but realises that her controlling protective ways are partially to blame for things.
"Gone Missing" is a simple movie to follow as we quickly see that Rene's over protective mothering has lead to her daughter, who she thinks is a good girl, having a secret side where she lets her hair down with her friend who is afforded more freedom by her mother. And so what we get when the daughters go missing is two stories as we have Rene and Lisa trying to find them and then we get flashbacks of the girls exploits the night before. So when the mum's head to a club where they were told the girls went we get to see via flashback what happened there.
Now what is suppose to happen with this is that we are meant to have the suspense of what happened to the daughters and whether or not they will be found alive. Unfortunately that side of "Gone Missing" has kind of gone missing itself and whilst we get flashback scenes of danger that sense of danger never really comes across. What we get instead is Rene realising that whilst all she wants to do is protect her daughter that maybe she has been too strict and over protective whilst Lisa realises that she should have been a bit more protective and a mum rather than behaving like her daughter's friend. And yes this side of "Gone Missing" is good but with the atmosphere not working and the tension never really getting you gripped the movie doesn't always succeed in holding your attention.
What this all boils down to is that "Gone Missing" is an entertaining drama, a nice daytime movie and a distraction for those who are not overly fussed by realism and grit. But it is a movie which struggles to really deliver the right atmosphere to keep you involved in what is happening.
