Mystérieuse disparition

They should have burned the work print out of respect for B.M! This "movie" gets my pick for worst movie I have seen in 2010. I'm sorry, I really liked Brittany and hate to see this as the last thing she put out before her tragic death. The acting, the writing, the story, the lighting, the continuity...everything is just pathetic. Its completely low budget, or at least the quality of the work is. Save yourself the 2 hours, you'd be better off watching grass grow.

*I only write reviews for really amazing movies or REALLY horrible movies. This is my first review in years, if that helps you judge how awful this was.

Although this film has not had the best of reviews, I decided to watch it for myself. I'm glad with my decision, as I was glued to the screen from start to finish and would say that it was not the disappointment as previous viewers had hinted.

I will admit that after a short while it was easy to guess what was going on with the plot, but even so I was still rather pleasantly surprised with the couple of twists that lay in store for me. I'm not convinced that some of the supporting cast were that great, particularly Scott Anthony Leet who I felt was rather 'wooden'. However, the main characters certainly got my vote.

It's rather sad that we wont be seeing any more of Brittany Murphy.

Her real-life death was tragic. Also sad her last movie was direct-to-video. It's a decent-to-good movie, but retreads grounds covered by many movies in the same genre. If it had struck out on it's own and paved new ground, or tried harder to be original the film could have been a better send-off for Brittany's career. All credit to the actress for a fine performance, especially considering she was gravely ill. It's far from Heath Ledger as Joker, but given the material she does a pretty good job. Interesting to note that she looked ill throughout the movie and I don't think it was an intended look. At times she was ghastly, sunken face black rings around her eyes. According to Wikipedia she was severely anemic (losing blood) which explains her paleness and ghastly appearance. She was also suffering from pneumonia.

Dean Cain does a fine job of playing her mysterious boyfriend, able to play the good guy well and leave you wondering about his motivations because he has played villainous roles since his Superman days. Mimi Rogers plays the hospital administrator well making you wonder if she is part of a conspiracy or just doing her job. Overall, this is pretty much a mystery and thriller movie. The downside is once the mystery is revealed (and it is done a bit too soon in my opinion)then it begins to retread many movies of the same vein, once I saw the big "reveal" everything that came after was standard formula and very predictable.

The movie is nice as a rental but I advise you rent it and not blind-buy it. If you like what you see it's a nice movie to have in a collection, not a must-buy, but if you like Brittany Murphy and want to own her last screen appearance then I recommend getting this. Had she not died it still would have been a decent movie, not great but worthy of seeing and maybe owning. I liked her outing in Across The Hall (and having just looked it up the rating for that was a 6 too but thought that was better than this). Maybe this is knocked down to a 5 because of a lack of originality and the acting in the latter half of the movie. I won't be surprised if the fan rating is higher based on her death.

It's a decent movie, but been rehashed plenty of times before (notably a lot of Ashley Judd 90's movies). It starts out well and keeps a good mystery going until one point in the film where you knew where everything was heading down a very worn path made by much better films like Double Jeopardy. Maybe I am overrating it due to the actress's death, but I kinda liked the movie. Read my review here -

http://www.movie-vault.com/reviews/abandoned-bluray/

In Los Angeles, the manager of bank Mary Walsh (Brittany Murphy) brings her boyfriend Kevin Peterson (Dean Cain) to the County Memorial Hospital for an orthopedic surgery of ligaments of his left knee with Dr. Harding. Mary is a needy woman that has just lost her mother ago and started a relationship with Kevin four months ago. Mary meets Kevin still wearing his brace on the left leg in the preparation room of the hospital that is going to shut down and the nurse Amanda asks her to move to the waiting room. When Mary seeks information about the surgery, she finds that there is no record of Kevin in the system and he has vanished. Further, Dr. Harding is on vacation and there is no nurse Amanda in the staff. She calls the police and Detective Franklin (Jay Pickett) that is in a routine check-up in the hospital is assigned to the case. No one believes in Mary and when she accidentally drops her anti-depressive pills on the floor, she is sent to psychological evaluation with Dr. Markus Bensley (Peter Bogdanovich) that diagnoses her as unstable and delusional woman. Mary flees from his office and seeks out Kevin alone disclosing the truth about her prince charming.

"Abandoned" is the last chapter of Kevin's book; and also the last chapter of the life of the promising actress Brittany Murphy. The implausible plot is entertaining despite the flaws and incoherences. How could an unstable woman have the authority to handle large amounts in her bank? Further, if she is so powerful how could she have such stupid attitudes in the hospital? In her situation, she would immediately call her lawyer to handle the situation with the hospital administration and the police. The hair of Brittany Murphy is awful and she looks very tired in this film. The former Superman is out of shape and very fat and the ham actor Peter Bogdanovich is terrible in the role of an incompetent psychologist. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Busca Alucinante" ("Alucinating Chase")

Both the storyline and the acting pick up as the movie goes on, thankfully. I gave it a seven which might be generous, because it would've been better had the movie kept the momentum throughout. There were a few times I was ready to give up early on, and I imagine others will be, but it's worth sticking with it.

Some of the acting was weak, but some of it gets better as the movie goes on, and the story starts to compensate.

Possibly the worst aspect of the movie was the main lead's make up. I have never seen ANYTHING so shockingly bad! (except Hush-hush Sweet Charlotte, but that was intentional and tied in with the character's persona). That make up crew (Simon Monjack, Claudia Londoño) ought to be fired. Seriously, I just could not take my eyes off her face for the entire movie because it was so appalling, and I was trying to figure out what on earth technique they were using that made it turn out so awful. Totally unprofessional.