Customer Reviews

The Lost Son

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

One of the best international thrillers in the last ten years. Daniel Auteuil plays a French private investigator, now living in London because of a tragedy that killed his wife and daughter in Paris. He is summoned by a friend he knew in Paris, also now in London, who tells Auteuil's character that he has a job for him, which is to locate his wife's brother. The brother--the lost son of the title--is known for his drug excesses, and so it is not surprising that he would be missing.
What is surprising is the chain of events that follows, taking Auteuil's character from London to Mexico and back, involving a prostitute, horrific child abuse, and corruption among the wealthy.

Auteuil does a fine job as the P.I., Billie Whitelaw--one of my favorite British actresses--is suitably hard-edged in the role of the family matriarch, and Bruce Greenwood is credibly sleazy as the dealer in unspeakable practices. The investigator makes moral choices throughout the entire film that are so dead on target that every act of violence contributes to the power of this film. This is a terrific film and absolutely worth owning. I am proud to have this in my DVD collection.

This is a taut & suspenseful thriller/mystery from Europe that, while not breaking any new ground, offers enough odd touches and twists to make it one of the better entries in the genre. Set in London, the film stars Daniel Auteuil, the wonderfully versatile French actor in an English-speaking part, as a private detective with a past. Auteuil is gifted, and he makes you accept him as this troubled and haunted ex-policeman, with nicely shaded touches. He is complimented with an excellent supporting cast that includes Nastassia Kinski and other English & French veterans.

The film has a sad and horrific story centering it's plot, (a story all too true, unfortunately), and moves along at a nice pace. It held my interest all the way.

The violence in the film is dealt with brutally but with tactful swiftness, not dwelt on or exaggerated. The direction is by Chris Menges, the award-winning cinematographer, and he does a good crisp job here. Well produced, and well worth your time if you like the genre.

My score of only three stars is primarily because I found the end of the movie unrealistic. I am a die hard Daniel Auteiul fan (even if I can't spell his name hahaha) and I like the movie uh...well...Sorry, it's harrowing. It's very disturbing and I was sick for a week after viewing it. I decided that there are things that go on in the world that I am perfectly content to be ignorant about, and child prostitution/pornography are two of them-- don't get me wrong. I'll support any and all efficacious legislation to ban it and prosecute beyond the fullest extent of the law who produces or partakes in it, but I just...don't want to know the particulars. So this film gave a glimpse (probably based on real existing arrangements of how someone "high class" goes about renting children to feed his sexual desires) of that underworld, and well... It was too much for me, it made me cry. Is money really worth ANYTHING???

The movie is a hard subject to digest, but it does exist and I give credit to the writer and whoever else was responsible for this movie to be made. The children are raised in Mexico until they are ready to be moved to larger cities and used as sex slaves. They are ignorant to what is going to happen to them in the near future. The movie is really not exploitative in showing the topic, it doesn't try to pull on our heartstrings by using emotional scenarios, it just shows it like it is, that is the really good thing about the movie. The rest of it is very predictable and fits the standard formula for all the substandard suspense films. That is why I rated it less than 4 stars. I wish there go have been something that ran against the grain aside from the topic, which is rarely shown in any movies, or even more rarely talked about. Daniel Auteuil is good in this
movie, and it was really neat to see him talk in English. I have always been a big fan of his. His acting is always superb! The movie was definately film noir, dark and mysterious, its just that the mystery wasn't hard to get and there weren't any parts that really grabbed your attention and held it, so 3 stars, for the subject matter and Auteuil....

This is a hard look at the evils of the child trade. A private investigator, who makes much of his money black mailing wealthy cheating spouses, gets a case involving a missing child. He then stumbles into the high stakes world of buying and selling children. High suspense. This film was a wake up call to what goes on in the world.

Doug Setter, Bsc.
Author of One Less Victim: A Prevention Guide and Stomach Flattening

Daniel Auteuil continues to impress me as one of today's finest actors -- in any language. This is a well-done thriller with an outstanding supporting cast, but it is Auteuil's film -- and he is -- well, merveilleux! Don't miss this one.

Good film, a little hard to follow at times due to the actor's French accent, but some great twists and turns. Sad to think though about the reality of the child sex trade, esp. in the West.

With such a cast, all that was needed was a few good plot twists. But no. Neither the writers (Eric and Margaret Leclere) nor the director (Chris Menges) has the faintest idea of how to create convincing tensions and conflicts. The scenes between M. Auteuil and Mlles Kinski and Denicourt all fall flat: they clearly have no idea of what's going on, and neither do we. The disappearance of a son leads to kiddie prostitution and snuff, but what does this have to do with a junkie from a good family? I couldn't watch the whole thing.