Some actors have careers that have some genuine high spots but in between those high spots sort of settle into certain patterns.  Like Liam Neeson before him, Gerard Butler is one of those guys who, in between the highs of 300 and the Olympus Has Fallen trilogy has become a certain type of action star, a regular guy who gets in to some very serious situations over his head but manages to save himself and those he cares about.  Butler, like Neeson before him, is actually quite good at this and some of his cinematic adventures are pretty solid, like Plane or Hunter Killer.  This one, not so much.

Brian Goodman’s film follows ordinary guy Will Spann (Gerard Butler) as he chauffeurs his wife Lisa (Jaimie Alexander) to her parents’ house in New Hampshire for an uncertain stay.  They stop at a gas station on the way and Lisa disappears.  Will frantically tries to persuade the local cops that she has been taken, but to little avail.  With very little to go on, Will takes matters into his own hands, discovers a very messy den of iniquity and risks everything to save his reluctant wife.

I want to credit Mr. Goodman and his team for developing and sustaining a genuine level of discomfort throughout the majority of this mystery-thriller.  We feel for Will because his frustration is absolutely heartfelt and genuine.  Like Breakdown in 1997, this is a story that seems all too harrowingly plausible, given certain circumstances, with a premise that almost promises heartbreak and tragedy.  That’s why it can work so well.  Except that about halfway through this story, Will makes a rather horrendous decision which threatens to derail the entire business.  This decision is made so that Will can find his way into the aforementioned den of iniquity with some realism, but it really defeats the movie’s momentum at the time.

The last third of the story is played as realistically as possible but it had already lost me.  It follows the movie dictum that movie heroes must risk everything, alone and without weaponry, to save what they love.  But in this case one simple phone call would have brought an army of law enforcement down and saved the day without all the skulking around and inevitable explosions that must take place.  The moral of this story should have been to call and trust the cops.  ☆ ☆.  16 January 2025.