Amazon.com
With a plot that might've been lifted from
The X-Files, nothing is quite what it seems in
The Forgotten, a psychological conspiracy thriller with Julianne Moore doing fine work as a grieving mother whose nine-year-old son was killed in a plane crash. At least, that's what she's been led to believe, but when even her husband (Anthony Edwards) tries to convince her that she's delusional and never had a child, things start to get very spooky indeed. Dominic West (from HBO's superb series
The Wire ) plays a similarly traumatized father, and when they witness some very strange events--and a mysterious man (Linus Roache) who might be indestructible--this glorified B-movie potboiler directed by Joseph Ruben (best known for
Dreamscape and
The Stepfather) turns into a preposterous but entertaining trip into
The Twilight Zone territory. Featuring Alfre Woodard as an intuitive New York detective and Gary Sinise as a seemingly sympathetic psychiatrist,
The Forgotten offers adequate shocks and an intriguing, otherworldly study of tenacious parental instinct. It deserved its mixed reviews, but it's a fun spook-fest for rainy-day viewing.
--Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com
Synopsis
Until the very last moments of Joseph Ruben's spooky suspense thriller, viewers will question who's who in the us-versus-them conundrum. We have but one hint: 'It's not about the children'. But as local police, the feds, and other unknowns follow Telly (Julianne Moore), a young mother who refuses to forget the death of her 9-year-old son Sam, it's clear that the children are a hot-button issue. While it's fishy enough that nobody--not even Telly's own husband (Anthony Edwards)--seems to remember Sam, and the plane crash she claims killed him was never reported in the newspapers, it's a question of whose story to believe. And Moore, the frantic mother with madness flickering in her eyes, may simply be delusional, or so her shrink (Gary Sinise) says. But when she finds another grieving parent, Ash (Dominic West), whose daughter died in the same accident, she now has a partner in conspiracy theory. Together, Ash and Telly flee through the damp alleyways beneath the Brooklyn Bridge where steam escapes from potholes and police searchlights penetrate the gothic fog. Somebody knows something about the children, and 'they' want Ash and Telly to forget. THE FORGOTTEN springs into an action-adventure race for the truth, with surprising special effects, exciting jolts, and bird's-eye camera shots on ominous geometric patterns in the urban landscape keeping this mystery in fifth gear.