Gone (15)

Time Out says

Tue Apr 17 2012

Everything about ‘Gone’ has the plasticy, leatherette feel of an imitation thriller. Amanda Seyfried stars, scrunching up her Bambi features into a troubled face to play Jill – who 12 months ago escaped a serial killer whose MO is abducting cute blondes and stashing them in the woods.

The police think she’s a hysteric and say serious cop things like, ‘You need help, Jill’ or ‘Let it go, Jill’. But when her big sis vanishes, Jill knows the killer is back. ‘I’ll sleep when he’s dead,’ she says, clutching her manila folder of missing women.

Luck would have it that after a couple clicks on Google Jill finds a suspect, whose neighbour confirms her suspicions: ‘My girlfriend says he has rape-y eyes.’ Well, that solves that. Or does it? You wouldn’t put a spot of blonde-snatching past the detective (Wes Bentley) brooding about in black and disappearing shiftily every time things hot up.

Not that anything really hots up. Whenever it hungers for a plot development, the script throws in a red herring or an action shot of Seyfried: Look she runs! Look she takes a shower! (Possibly the naffest softcore shower scene ever).

Poor Seyfried. It’s fast looking like the highlight of her career was ‘Mamma Mia!’ As for poor Jill, she makes the classic schoolgirl error of allowing herself to be lured to an abandoned cabin in the woods – needless to say this is not the cabin in the woods you’ll be wanting to see this weekend.

Author: Cath Clarke