To say that this film sucked is not so much an inarticulate assessment of a not very good film, so much as it is actually an accurate description of the actions taken (as can be seen already in the trailers currently running on TV and in theatres).
Without spoiling too much of the "plot," let us, through the magic of visualisation, imagine the most ridiculous, ludicrous plot twist you can imagine ever happening in a mystery. Now, let's imagine that that is the "plot twist" in The Forgotten, a film being hyped as having the most innovative twist since The Sixth Sense.
Having actually seen this film, I can say that no, in fact, it's not that innovative at all, and may in fact be derivative, obvious, and, judging from the number of times I burst out in hysterical laughter, completely absurd and unbelievable. It isn't even so much as a twist, as it is a thing all but hammer-on-the-head revealed within thirty minutes of the film's start. Sure, there were times when I was afraid in a cheap, scare-tactics kind of way, and occasionally, I felt bad for Julianne Moore, but then something so unbelievable would happen I couldn't force myself to stay within the unjustifiable lunacy of the movie. It keeps you guessing for a little while, but somewhere around the halfway-mark, I began to wish that it would just be over.
Julianne Moore, who I've heard people say they would pay to read the Ann Arbour Phone Book, was mostly believable as lovely and distressed mother Telly Paretta, who is being led to believe that her son never existed. Not easy, given that her script only allowed her to keep chanting "Where's my son? Where's my son?"
Anthony Edwards, a wasted resource, plays her husband, who then becomes just another character to fall by the wayside. Gary Sinise sticks through to the end, past the "delusions," past the suspiciously involved federal agents, to the "truth" as Telly's ineffectual therapist. Rounding out the powerhouse cast of well-known actors (who apparently had no better scripts to choose from last year) is Alfre Woodard as a detective who believes Telly, only to become just another wasted actor in a bad film.
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