From the start, “The Vanished” aims to hook the viewer. While I would focus on what questions ought to be asked at this point, doing so would spoil some of the film’s pleasures.
Set pieces of this new film, written and directed by Peter Facinelli, features Thomas Jane and Anne Heche (who starred together years ago in a very different context on the cable series “Hung”). Facinelli also has a supporting role as a deputy. The couple does seem to have at least one great blessing while being together and as a couple with seemingly few cares. We see them singing together and driving down a scenic back road in an RV. Their four grade daughter Taylor happily sings along with their adorable pug, Lucky, romping around.
Things start to feel even a little creepier when they pull into an RV park. The surly manager does not offer them the warmest of welcomes. The younger caretaker is a little off, who throughout the movie flourishes into a figure that looks like the protagonist of the Onion’s “Ask A Faulknerian Man Child” article. Also tha, there is some crazed Dave Bautista-looking dude (played by Mitchell L. Johnson) wandering around the forests. After a few distracted minutes of Jane’s Paul talking to fellow RV owner Miranda (Aleksei Archer), he looks around expecting to see Taylor, and she is gone. Enter Jason Patric’s Sheriff Baker who tells Paul and Heche’s Wendy that, there is a convict that has escaped and is also on the loose. As we eventually find out, Baker is a hard drinking man with marriage problems and a lost child in his own past. What a mouthful?
Facinelli doesn’t just rely on a balance of tension and confusion; he uses it as a decoy to his ultimate coup the grace. This disorienting effect is compounded by Wendy and Paul’s reaction to their confusion and trauma. Like for instance, Wendy decides to take Paul’s gun into the woods. And encounters someone.
Paul is stranger. While Paul and Wendy are unpacking the van owned by Miranda and her husband, he discovers a camera full of nudes of Miranda which he watches for an extended period of time. Afterwards, he manages to persuade Wendy into some sexual activity. Such is life, right? This takes place on the second day of the missing person’s case.
You’ll be pleased to know that all of your questions concerning this man are eventually answered. Despite the abundance of misleading information that’s presented, there are still some quite substantial gaps. For instance, the surly RV Park manager’s residence that fascinates the spending investigating cops does not have a education wing, and of course it conceals some of the mysteries. Alongside this, while Facinelli does stage and shoot his material with above average confidence and flair, he does often unleash a camera move that makes Andrew Sarris’ quote “the wasteful pan” come to life. You have to admit that the wrap up got me good. It’s particularly impressive how Facinelli balances ambition and strong mechanics. “Hour of Lead” is a phrase from an Emily Dickinson poem. Facinelli is not as generic as the title indicates. It is certainly not as loaded as the movie title “lead” suggests and the phrase is certainly not as misleading slung with the opening credits.
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