| |
The Vanishing
rating: ZERO STARS (out of
4 stars)
United States; 1993
Directed by George Sluizer; produced by Larry Brezner, Paul Schiff;
screenplay by Todd Graff
Starring Jeff Bridges, Kiefer Sutherland, Sandra Bullock, Nancy Travis, Park
Overall, Maggie Linderman
Below you will find a temporary review for this film.
The real (better, more complete) review will be online very soon.
'The Vanishing' is the Hollywood remake of the Dutch film 'Spoorloos' based
on the book "The Golden Egg", written by Tim Krabbé. The book and the Dutch
original are close to perfect, this remake goes terribly wrong in crucial
places, most of all the ending. The main story starts the same as the
original. A young couple stop at a gas station. The woman named Diane
(Sandra Bullock) disappears, the man named Jeff (Kiefer Sutherland) keeps on
searching for her. He is still searching, or at least trying to find out
what happened to her, three years later when is dating a girl named Rita
(Nancy Travis). The one who made Diane vanish is Barney (Jeff Bridges). This
is no surprise. This is pretty early in the film and before he actually
kidnaps a girl we have seen him practice. Barney decides to contact the
persisting Jeff.
Although until here the main story is not much different from the original,
already a couple of stupid Hollywood things have passed. Early in both
'Spoorloos' and 'The Vanishing' Jeff and Diane run out of gas. This happens
in a tunnel. In 'Spoorloos' the Jeff-character (named Rex here) walks away
after a little fight, getting gas, and after he comes back the
Diane-character (Saskia here) is gone. The title of the film hints to a
possibility she is already gone for good, but that is not true. This sort of
happens in 'The Vanishing' as well, but in this version they add something.
Because the car is in a tunnel, apparently invisible for the screenwriter
despite the red lights attached to the car, they let a truck almost run over
them. How stupid! Does anyone believe there is suspense here? I mean, we are
in the first ten minutes of a film called 'The Vanishing'. It is not a short
film, it is not called 'The Truck Accident'. Little things like this, simple
clichés that seem so stupid, spoil the first part of the film.
I will not spoil the ending, but I have to say this ending is terrible. It
seems that the screenwriter simply did not understand where the book, or the
original film, and most things leading up the ending in his own screenplay,
were actually about. The chilling final moments of 'Spoorloos' were so
perfect and, indeed, inevitable, it is almost hard to understand why they
have changed it. But then again, Hollywood loves this kind of endings. |