Jill (Amanda Seyfried) has post-traumatic syndrome disorder of the worst kind. Years ago, she is abducted by an unknown man and stashed in a hole in a ground surrounded by human remains of his victims. She manages to escape but when she reports it to the police, Jill is deemed nuts. See, after checking out her story, no hole is found. Jill is considered mentally disturbed who gets sent to an institution to rehabilitate herself. This time around Jill is on a mission: her sister Molly is missing and Jill knows that the same man who kidnapped her has done it again. This is ‘Gone’, a thriller written by Allison Burnett (‘Underworld: Awakening) and directed by Heitor Dhalia.
Unfortunately, the only thing gone in this movie will be your patience. For a supposed thriller, there’s none to be had here. The structure of the story and the trite dialogue only make it a B-movie with an almost A-list cast (thanks to Seyfried and Wes Bentley as a suspicious police officer) and as bad as it is, it doesn’t go to good-bad levels.
There are bad movies that are intentionally made to make entertainment of B-movie greatness. ‘Gone’ takes itself too seriously when in truth there’s nothing serious about it. We want to be scared for Jill and her sister Molly, there is a ruthless kidnapper putting women in a hole in a ground, after all. But did you really expect to be frightened when ‘Gone’ is less daring than an episode of ‘Law & Order: SVU’?
‘Gone’ aspires to be ‘Silence of the Lambs’ so badly that we’re made to believe that Amanda Seyfried’s character could be Jodie Foster’s Clarice. Nope, can’t be. Surprisingly, Jill may be distraught but she’s a good Nancy Drew, investigating her abductor and would-be killer. And all the info she needs conveniently falls into place – what the—does she have superpowers or what? Every time she asks anyone – strangers – they seem to know who she’s talking about and even directs her to him! Apparently for this movie logic will also be literally ‘Gone’, all right.