The Vanishing (1993)

Director:

George Sluizer

Writers (WGA):

Tim Krabbé (novel)
Todd Graff (screenplay)

Release Date:

5 February 1993 (USA)

Genre:

Mystery | Romance | Thriller

Tagline:

If someone you loved mysteriously vanished how far out of your mind would you go to find them?

Plot:

The boyfriend of an abducted woman never gives up the search as the abductor looks on.

Plot Keywords:

Gas Station | Fall Down Stairs | Spiked Drink | Missing Person | Passed Out

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

Jeff Bridges	...	Barney Cousins
Kiefer Sutherland	...	Jeff Harriman
Nancy Travis	...	Rita Baker
Sandra Bullock	...	Diane Shaver
Park Overall	...	Lynn
Maggie Linderman	...	Denise Cousins
Lisa Eichhorn	...	Helene Cousins
George Hearn	...	Arthur Bernard
Lynn Hamilton	...	Miss Carmichael
Garrett Bennett	...	Cop at Gas Station (as Gareth Bennett)
George Catalano	...	Highway Cop
Frank Girardeau	...	Cop at Apartment
Stephen Bridgewater	...	TV Host (as Stephen Wesley Bridgewater)
Susan Barnes	...	Colleague
Rich Hawkins	...	Stan

MPAA:

Rated R for terror and violence, and for language.

Runtime:

109 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

Australia:M | Canada:14A (Ontario) | Netherlands:16 | Italy:VM14 | Argentina:16 | Chile:14 | France:-12 | Germany:16 | Norway:15 | Spain:13 | Sweden:15 | UK:15 | USA:R | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Bellevue, Washington, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

The cabin by the lake scenes were filmed at Camp Omache, a Boy Scout summer camp near Monroe, WA.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Barney goes to Jeff's apartment there's a nice artistic touch...the reflection of his face in the outside car mirror as he gets out of the car. The problem is that in order to make that shot work the mirror had to be aimed at the sky...making it useless when driving.

Quotes:

Jeff Harriman: The police - they laugh at me. I'm a joke to them.
Rita Baker: I'm beginning to see their point.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Six Feet Under: The Dare (#4.7)" (2004)

Soundtrack:

SWEET RAIN

How to destroy your career in one simple remake

George Sluizer's original version of The Vanishing aka The Man Who Wanted to Know offers one of European cinema's most quietly disturbing sociopaths and one of the most memorable finales of all time (shamelessly stolen by Tarantino for Kill Bill Volume Two), but it has plenty more to offer than that. Playing around with chronology and inverting the usual clichés of standard 'lady vanishes' plots, it also offers superb characterisation and strong, underplayed but convincing performances.

Unfortunately, I can only assume that when it came to the remake, Sluizer was so determined that no-one else was going to get the chance to ruin his film when he was perfectly capable of doing it himself, but few people could have anticipated how comprehensively he trashes his own work. His career never recovered from this disastrous misstep.

Chief culprit is an astonishing performance by Jeff Bridges that has been over thought through in every detail to a truly disastrous level. A friend who produced one of his earliest movies noted that Bridges was a great instinctive actor as long as you stopped him thinking about what he was doing, and this film is the proof of the pudding. Every movement is overly mechanical in its precision, making him look like a rusty clockwork toy, while his voice is a bizarre mixture of Tootsie, Latka Gravas from Taxi and a Dalek who have all been taking elocution lessons from Dok-tah E-ville. No banality of evil here, just a looney walking around with an invisible sign over his head saying "Please. Let. Me. Kill. You. Thank you. For your. Consideration.' But the blame really needs to be shared out here. None of the performances are good: often, they don't even look good – Keifer Sutherland looks more like a baby hamster than a distraught man at his wits end in the hurried scenes at the gas station, Nancy Travis flounders badly and Sandra Bullock makes no impression at all as the object of his obsession. Not that they're given any help by either director or writer Todd Graff. The script is particularly weak. The chronology has been altered to put the focus firmly on Bridges at the expense of the couple at the opening of the film. Worse is the rush the film is in, draining the life and character from each scene in its race to get to the next. Rather than the high/low mood shifts in the couple's relationship or the apparently casual but careful establishing of the feel of the location, we just get a couple of arguments that give you the impression that he's probably better off without her. As for the new and improved happy ending – standard woman chased by nutter in the woods jeopardy stuff complete with lame 'let's end on a joke like a TV cop show' moment – best not go there… which is advice that holds for this entire trainwreck of a movie. Even a shockingly bland and uninspired Jerry Goldsmith score can't do anything for this one.