The Forgotten: X-Files without the good stuff

By Michael Boylan
mboylan@TheCitizenNews.com

When I first saw the previews for “The Forgotten,” I was intrigued. How is it that everyone but Julianne Moore’s character has forgotten her son? How have the pictures and videos that contained him disappeared? Who is behind this conspiracy? Why are they doing it? There are answers to all of those questions in the movie and, unlike “The X-Files,” the answers are clear and presented in a timely manner, but the payoff is very anti-climactic.

Moore plays a grieving mom named Telly, though the characters seem to be saying Tully. Right away, we start wondering, who has a name like Telly or Tully and what is it short for? Anyway, her kid died in a plane crash and she has a hard time letting go. One day, pictures that had him in it are gone and then home videos that featured him now only play static. She freaks, accuses her husband of trying to get rid of the memories of him, and runs away.

She runs to the apartment of Ash, a guy who lost his daughter in the same crash, only he doesn’t remember Tully/Telly or his daughter. After he calls the cops, it hits him. He did have a daughter and he does remember and now they are on the run from national security agents, the police and a creepy, expressionless man that must be linked to this mystery.

The pacing of the first part of this film was fine and I’ll admit there were a few good scares as people jump out at them or get ripped up into the sky (have an idea what’s behind this yet?). The ending is where this really fell apart. Remember “Contact” with Jodie Foster and how bad that ending was? Well, the ending for “The Forgotten” is similarly silly and it ruins what was a decent psychological thriller.

Moore, as always, gave a good performance, as did Dominic West as Ash, and it was nice to see Alfre Woodard as a tough NYPD detective, but there weren’t any spectacular performances. Gary Sinise was completely wasted as Telly/Tully’s shrink and Anthony Edwards had a particularly thankless role as Tully/Telly’s husband.

“The Forgotten” isn’t terrible and it will probably have a good shelf life at the video store and on cable, but it could have been much more with a few tweaks to the ending and the secondary characters.

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