Too many fans seem to be blown away

To me, this movie is perfection.

Let's be realistic.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

What a meh of a movie! Although it's good for a good sob. Kate Nelligan maintains a single expression throughout: pursed-lipped, blanked-faced concern. A highlight is a climactic speech given by Stockard Channing as she sports an 80s shag perm so frizzy she looks to have just been electrocuted, an effect belied by the fact that she spends the whole emotional scene calmly stirring her finger in a bottle of Tab. The film ultimately struck home for me, however, because all the appliances in the film were vintage Reagan era and exactly the same I had at home as a kid, down to the analog clock on the oven and the absence of a microwave. All and all a dull, yet somehow still engrossingly forgettable film that jumped the early wave of post-Etan Patz/Steve Stayner kidnapping hysteria!

Stanley R. Jaffe's sole directorial effort is a disappointingly tepid and meandering film. Based on the novel Still Missing, the story is eerily similar to the real life disappearance of Etan Patz who has never been found, and what should have been gripping and moving is a standard Lifetime Channel movie weighed down by dreary, predictable dialog, and characters and situations that feel gratuitous. Kate Nelligan's tightly controlled performance may leave you cold or worse; she is neither sympathetic nor likable, and her brooding become tiresome. Jaffe drags the pace until boredom prevails, and in a lackluster and largely unnecessary supporting cast only Keith McDermott scores a success while a frazzled Stockard Channing resembles a train wreck. And the out of left field happy ending is hokey and strangely unsatisfying. Skip It!

One of the best lines as Kate Nelligan portrays Susan Selky, a professor in NYC whose son has been abducted, and possibly murdered.Nelligan is outstanding as a frustrated and angry mother whose son one day simply disappears after she sees him off on the school bus.There are a few surprises here. Judd Hirsch is very good as Detective Minetti, although the story does go off tangent a bit with his family life. David Dukes portrays her estranged husband, who is initially suspected of abducting his own son.Stockard Channing also has a small part as Selky's friend. When she attempts to talk Susan into the platitude : ..."picking up your bootstraps and move on"..., Susan (Nelligan) becomes enraged, telling her she cannot have a clue as to how this feels. A very powerful scene, and relevant to anyone who has experienced a horrible loss, and doesn't know how to cope.Overall this is a good film with a few tangents, but well worth a view. 8/10.

Kate Nelligan and Judd Hirsch both give outstanding performances as the mother of a missing child and the detective determined to find him. I felt so bad for this poor woman when her little boy disappeared. Nelligan wonderfully conveys this mother's anguish and you feel angry on her behalf when they question her about her being the guilty party! Judd Hirsch had been nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor for his role in Ordinary People and he proves here that it wasn't a lucky fluke. He plays a man who is a tough, professional police officer, but at the same time he still has a caring heart and feels for this poor mother. He plays a tough sob with his heart on his sleeve so wonderfully. It is a tribute to these two fine actors that they make their characters seem so real that your heart aches for them. Actually, there are many children who vanish in the United States every year, most of these are runaways or children who are abducted by non-custodial parents. "Stranger" abductions are really very rare, but they are the most heartbreaking and tragic, like Adam Walsh's abduction. This film SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT, had an ending that was one of the happiest that I have ever seen in a movie. I saw Without A Trace two decades ago and I still remember how I felt like rejoicing like a sinner in church when Alex was found and they brought him home! I almost cried because I only wish that real life could be like this and that all abducted children could return home. I wanted to point out that this movie is based on a real life child abduction that has not had a happy ending at all. In May of 1979, a little boy in New York named Etan Patz left to go to his bus stop to go to school and disappeared without a trace. He was finally declared legally dead a few years ago. Many people have credited the disappearance of Etan Patz with awakening people to the plight of missing children.