another found movie...

Amber Alert

I've become a bit weary of watching found footage movies and yet when I go to one I am instantly sucked into the film and want to see where it goes. Yeah yeah yeah shaky camera, whiny girl, annoyingly unsupportive boyfriend, movie ends with a camera falls to the floor but you can't really understand why the y are still filming. The movie that started all this phenomena (to the extent it is now, there certainly were shaky cam found footage movies before) was The Blair Witch Project. It began as an ad campaign that set the world to thinking. Could someone release footage of a crime? Could they release footage that proves that someone died? In the end of Blair Witch, we are left to ponder the questions and the filmmakers quite ingeniously played on our fears of watching a truly horrific scene unfold before us as "found footage." I don't pretend to get us but as much as watching real lives end in The Bridge horrified me, so does the found footage movie. It taps into a need that we all have to see the head of some poor accident victim rolling down the highway as we drive past. We don't want to look but we cannot stop. 

     I came across this latest movie "Amber Alert" while looking through trailers on Hulu. The idea messed with my head and by the time it was all over, I had paused it a few times because I didn't want to scream out. To see this in a movie theater would have had me curled in a ball at the bottom of my seat. I just couldn't look away and yet I wanted to. The movie which stars Summer Bellessa and Chris Hill as two friends who want to sign up for an Amazing Race type show. They are in the process of filming their audition tape when they notice an Amber Alert. For those of you not familiar with the Amber Alert, it is a system that alerts drivers to possible abductions and the cars the suspects were last seen driving. So Sam (Bellessa) and Nate (Hill) are driving to an adventure when they see the car from the Amber Alert signs they've been passing. I found myself wondering exactly what I would do. I would call the police, that much is sure but does your responsibility end there? Sam and Nate decide that they will follow the car until the police arrive (giving constant updates to the cops). The movie slows a bit here and you can see the whining and needless arguments between the two friends. Sam cannot fathom letting this car out of their sight while Nate recognizes that they are not the police and probably cannot do anything to stop. There is a bit of a mention that Nate probably has feelings for Samantha but the story is not fully explored. It does however lend credence to why Nate goes as far as he does.

Amber Alert does raise the question as to how far I would go? I'd like to think I'd follow the guy for as long as I could and intervene if given the option. Yet there is a part of me that would simply not want to get involved. It is probably a custody battle gone too far, I'd tell myself. I would report it to the police and hopefully they would come to take down the kidnapper and all the little girls and boys would be safe and sound. The police are definitely not at their finest here. They seem to be completely clueless and non responsive. I doubted seriously if someone called in a Amber Alert if the police would be so lackadaisical when responding. They would swarm the freeway and the citizen reporting it would not have to make a decision as to the length of their involvement. Justice would be served, danger averted. I am man enough to know that I am not Shemar Moore and I cannot slam a grown man to the hood of a car and hold them until the police arrive. What can I honestly do? So I would hope that the police were on their game and could respond. I understand though that the pretense of the movie demanded that Sam and Nate be the only help this girl had coming. Otherwise the movie would be a rather boring affair. The car is spotted, police arrest bad guy, little girl avoids being diddled in the basement of a surprising large ranch home in Arizona. 

Amber Alert is not a movie for someone who cannot suspend their disbelief a little and enjoy the ride the movie literally takes you on. There is not a lot of jump out of darkness, cat runs across the piano, jolting scare moments. Amber Alert is a movie where you yell at the screen and plead for them to not be so stupid. I read a review after watching this movie and it mentioned that the main characters where two of the stupidest people they've ever seen. I'd offer that if you've spent any time watching horror movies that the characters in horror movies do not come from the smarter side of the gene pool. Sam and Nate are just as valid as the camp counselors at Camp Crystal Lake who keep trying to reopen when Jason and his Mom keep showing them why they should stay away. I'd even give them more of a valid excuse for their actions. They want to help and save a little girl who has been abducted by a bad man. Isn't that something you would aspire to? See this movie if you like found footage films. If you don't, then don't. 

Mr. Unhappy sez: Bad people who kidnap little girls need to be caught...hopefully by the police and not Sam and Nate.

If you are interested this movie is available for rent on Amazon.com