Last Seen in Idaho

Showtime has a pretty wide selection of films and genres these days from independent films and Sundance movies to big budget blockbusters. That's one of the things I like about the channel. I was just perusing the guide and Last Seen in Idaho was about to start. The title and the description sounded cool so I went for it even though I didn't know any of the actors in it except I recognized one of them. It turned about to be a decent thriller. Maybe I'd classify it more as a mystery because there's a fair amount of sleuthing by the main character in between the occasional chase or fight scene. I liked the lead actress. She was relatable and natural. I really liked the lead male. He was simmering and likeable. All in all it's decent if you like these kinds of mystery-thriller movies.

Unique thriller with a good concept involving lost memories and an unsolved crime. I think this is a movie that women will like more than men in that it follows a female character, including her conflicted relationship with her sister, and there is also some romance thrown in as well with a good-looking male character. The main character was likeable and relatable.

Ugh. Excessive violence (needlessly), thankfully "Last Seen in Idaho" had a happy ending. The lead actress won the Best Lead Actress Award at Gig Harbor Movie Festival and she certainly deserved it. Two most prominent male criminal characters were very convincing as evil dudes. However, I had to mute the audio several times on intense violent scenes and rely on close captions just to be able to continue watch the movie. I only continued watching because I'm very curious and the actors where so good, thus I still had hope there would be a good-decent ending. Directors can learn a lot from watching classic Alfred Hitchcock movies. All this excessive violence is a huge turnoff (it was doubled due to lead actress's gift of foresight), if there was a better script with more subtle violence vs. Overt violence this movie could have been an 8-9 out of ten. Instead it's a barely watchable 5 of ten. This is one of those cases where the book would be ten x better than the movie even for the genre. What on Earth is Hollywood thinking with this much overt violence? We the people want good quality entertainment. ***This movie is NOT suitable for kids in any way, shape or form.****

I really wasn't sure what to think of this movie going into it. The poster looks like a blow-em-up action movie. I watched the trailer and that conveyed a thriller with a female lead more than an action film with guns a blazing. I was intrigued enough by the premise of a woman having visions of her murder that hasn't happened yet, so I gave it a go. I was pleasantly surprised. The suspense was well done with a few highly tense sequences, namely one of the early scenes when Summer (the heroine) sees a murder, as well as a few later scenes that I won't spoil. The way that early aforementioned scene was directed and shot felt eerie and claustrophobic.

The reason I rank the movie as a 7 and not an 8 or 9 is because there are quite a lot of characters jampacked into this story. This is necessary on one hand because there is a mystery element to the story where you can suspect any character, but at the same time, I wanted to stay focused on the main characters and their relationships to each other, namely those of Summer and Franco (love interest/or maybe the death of her) and that of Summer and Lance (ex-boyfriend). I will say that I was very surprised by the reveal at the end, so in that regard, it succeeded in keeping me engaged and preventing me from figuring things out. A tense, interesting thriller with a great cast.

The movie has an intriguing set up: Woman witnesses crime and in a near death escape ends up in coma only to awaken with special powers. Now this movie mainly stays in the realm of realism. The "special powers" are limited to premonitions that pop up unexpectedly and all relate in some form or other to her upcoming murder. How can she stop it?

I feel like this movie wanted to go deeper with some of the themes that it presented: Can we change our destiny? Are the mistakes of our past destined to haunt us? It dances around those topics, but with so many characters and plotlines in need of development in order to serve the mystery and the suspense, it never fully explores those themes. I wish it would have. That would have elevated the movie to a solid '8' for me.

Good directing. Good writing. Good acting. It's good across the board with suspense, moments that make you jump, tension, and some good action, but it's missing that something that would turn it into a break-out hit. Middle was a touch slow, maybe? Still, I recommend it. It was entertaining.