The Missing Person

Headlined by two Oscar nominees and shot in shades of gold and brown, The Missing Person is a stylish private-eye flick. Miss Charley (Amy Ryan) sets things in motion when, acting on behalf of an attorney, she hires gin-soaked private investigator John Rosow (Michael Shannon) to find Harold Fullmer (Frank Wood), a mystery man traveling with a Mexican boy, and bring him back to his wife in New York. Rosow tracks his prey by train from Chicago to Los Angeles, with both cities existing in a sort of timeless space that's neither past nor present (Rosow likes old-school jazz but lives in a world of cell phones and Segways). On his journey to the West and back, the P.I. discovers that Fullmer went missing after 9/11 and had been presumed dead. Like Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly, Noah Buschel's third feature conjures up an off-kilter tone that sometimes adopts a surrealistic touch (as when the dyspeptic detective dreams about a woman who may not actually exist). But Rosow is no Mike Hammer tough guy—he's much smarter, more sensitive, and turns out to have a few secrets of his own. Margaret Colin as a sly seductress and John Ventimiglia as a Serpico-obsessed cabbie ably support Shannon in this enjoyable outing for film noir fans. Highly recommended. (K. Fennessy)