Customer Reviews

Missing in America

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

****
This is a special film that I would recommend for adults. It is about the difficult recovery of the Vietnam veteran community in a rural area of the Pacific Northwest. They live isolated and impoverished lives, trapped in the past. When one of them, played by Danny Glover, takes care of a friend's young daughter, everything changes, and not only does Danny Glover's character begin to learn to love again, but the entire community comes closer.

I would not recommend this film for children, because I think that the adult themes of war recovery, war trauma, and intense grief would be too much for them; probably over 18 would be best for this film. It is not depressing, as you might think reading the synopsis, but is an inspirational film about interdependency, love, and forgiveness. It is not a "happy" film either, though. I would best call it a deep, poignant, and intense film that is an excellent use of the viewer's time. It would be good for an evening when you want to be moved and drawn into something to forget about your own problems or to help you deal with your own grief.

The acting is remarkable, the scenery lovely, and the young actress---Zoe Weizenbaum---who plays the friend's daughter---is perfect for her role. Danny Glover is marvelous, as is Linda Hamilton. An unlikely grouping of actors in a gem of a movie. You won't regret watching it.
****

I can't add much to what already has been said. But, I found it funny, sad, tragic, and finally, uplifting. Vietnam still affects everyone it touches, and this film does just that. If you watch it, you will be affected. A good movie overall...

I recently saw Missing in America at the Monaco International Film festival in which it won Best Film! I just ordered it on DVD so I can give them to my friends and family. I think everyone should see this film. It an excellent independent film debut for a truly wonderful director, Gabrielle Savage Dockterman. Danny Glover, Linda Hamilton, David Strathairn, and Ron Perlman are excellent. Zoe Weizenbaum is a wonderful new actress and did a great job. I hope everyone can see this film with someone they love.

Danny Glover depicts a haunted Vietnam vet who's secluded himself in the Pacific Northwest. When a man formerly under his command shows up with his half Vietnamese daughter, Linny, and entrusts her fate to him, he's reluctant, but he and the girl gradually develop a relationship and also begin to interact with the community around them, including even more isolated Vietnam vets.

This film doesn't have the ending I'd hoped for--in either the theatre or the alternate ending. As a former Vietnam vet I worked with once said, "It ain't right, but it's real."

That's the way I felt when I finished this film.

If you can watch this movie and not learn something about the nature of human attachment or how we grieve, you have lost something precious that every feeling person should possess. Even if a few of the characters seem unlikely or contrived, this is a beautiful and affecting movie.

This movie can be a useful tool for anyone who is struggling with the after effects of trauma. That would include those who have been traumatized through physical/sexual assault, child abuse or through war. Because of the potential emotional impact of this movie on these groups, anyone in counseling should consider consulting with their counselor prior to viewing.

For those who wrote reviews claiming none of what happened in this film is truth I have one thing to say. Their heads are deeply buried in sand. I personally know many young men who returned from this war not only bearing terrible physically injuries, but horrible mental ones. I suspect these same people who think this way deny anything is happening in Irag and that for those that have died a multituted are retuning home mutilated and mentally beyond hope. The saying is all to true "When we do not learn from our past mistakes we are bound to repeat them." WAKE UP!

After I finished viewing this movie for the first time I had to take a few minutes to compose myself. I was so deeply moved by the characters who were vividly represented as the plot progressed. The last few scenes left me reaching for the tissue box again and again. While I originally thought it was going to be yet another predictible vet story, I was extremely pleased and surprised to see that FINALLY the screenwriters of this movie had the sense to through in a few twists. I never could have guessed the twists and turns that unfolded, it is pure brilliance on part of the writers.
Light the fire, curl up underneath a warm blanket and clear your night for this movie will bring you to a new place.

This is a spectacular, heart wrenching movie. I definitely recommend this movie to any one looking for a good drama with a little comedy as well.

"Missing in America," a 2005 Danny Glover vehicle now available on DVD and video, is yet another remake of Jackie Gleason's masterpiece, Gigot, but the twist this time is that the reluctant father figure, played by Glover, is a Viet-Nam vet haunted by memories and guilt and hiding out in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. If you have seen the original, or 2004's "Wool Cap" (which was much better), you know the setup. A crusty loner is suddenly saddled with an irresistibly cute little girl who melts his heart, redeems his soul, and brings him out of the shadows and back into the world of the living. The formula worked in Gigot; it worked in Wool Cap. Here, however, it just doesn't quite make it.

A significant part of the problem is that this version of the time-worn tale replaces the original's war-torn setting (and Wool Cap's more believable hardscrabble ghetto) with a loose community of Viet vets all on a permanent hermit campout in the woods and hills of the Cascades. While, if the liner notes are to be believed, there may be some actual basis for this backdrop, that fact is never established in any credible way by the screenplay. Thus, when the vets come shyly creeping out of the woods, they resemble nothing so much as hippie Munchkins coaxed from behind flowers and potted palms by Glenda's soothing promptings. Beyond this, where Gigot's little girl was a war orphan and Wool Cap's version was unintentionally abandoned by a drug-crazed, junkie mother, Glover's unexpected ward is intentionally dropped off by a father who knows he is going to die in a matter of days from lung cancer. But if any of the care and concern shown by David Strathairn as the girl's father were real, he'd have found SOMEPLACE better, SOMEONE better to entrust with his precious daughter's future. Unfortunately, the resulting set-up is so artificial that it ruins much of what follows.

And what follows is by now all too predictable. Scratching at soil long ago deeply mined by not only its two predecessors, but also by efforts from The Odd Couple to Kitchen Stories, the two improbable roommates clash, gash and gnash their way to an inevitable modus vivendi and blossoming harmony.

The one unexpectedly original twist of this version, however, in many ways seals the film's fate. For unlike the predecessor movies, in this version the sweet young child comes to an unexpectedly sad end. The problem is that this essentially leaves the movie far from over, but without an ending. To compensate, the film lurches forward like a zombie, with little sense of purpose, direction or logic until a final oddly anticlimactic scene at The Wall in Washington.

The film's failures are all the more regrettable because the cast turns in, for the most part, believable, moving and memorable performances. As the vet-turned-recluse, Glover is excellent, even if at several points he actually looks as though he half expects Mel Gibson to come popping out from behind a chair. Linda Hamilton makes a rare appearance as Glover's erstwhile friend and grocery store proprietor, and the new maturity of her features lends a quiet credibility to her gritty portrayal. In an interesting bit of casting (although they never appear on screen together), Hamilton's "Beauty and the Beast" co-star, Ron Perlman, has three short appearances, his face once again covered by disfiguring make-up, but his presence powerful and significant nonetheless. Regrettably, the one weak link in the acting was turned in by young Zoë Weizebaum as the story's central character. While she IS as cute and endearing as all get out, she does not (yet) have the acting chops to pull off this role, and the level of her performance was, more often than not, strictly grammar school production.

From the moment Glover's fellow vets are introduced, it is clear that the theme of this film is going to be America's greatest shame, its forgotten soldiers of Viet-Nam. Moreover, it is equally clear that this is a subject about which the screenwriter, the director and the cast feel very, very deeply. The story they wanted to tell was one of hope, redemption, acceptance and forgiveness. Sadly, almost none of this comes through in this flawed film, and THAT is a shame. The vets deserve better...and so does the audience.

This movie was just spectacular. I highly recommend this movie!It was beautifully done and the characters are so real, you feel all their emotions right along with them.
I cannot say enough good things about this movie - However, that being said, I must warn you that it is heartbreaking. The pivotal part of this movie will leave you stunned and in shock. I admit that I cried the whole last 30 minutes of the movie so, if you read this before you watch it be forewarned!