The  same night I saw Precious I saw The Missing Person, a movie whose lack of publicity is the polar opposite of the Oprah-Tyler Perry machine behind Precious.  I was one of six lone men in the audience—the total audience—until a pair of women entered just as the theater went dark.  Their appearance surprised me until their opening credit cheer for editor Mollie Goldstein explained it.

Seeing The Missing Person right after Precious rendered it somewhat forgettable, but it is a solid indie noir update with more on its mind than just recalling Bogie.  The film follows a P.I. who takes a job tracking a man.  While on the trail, he puts together the puzzle of why they are both there. The shadow of 9/11, like WWII’s shadow over classic period noir, hangs over the film and ultimately it recalls Gone Baby Gone as the lead discovers that the right thing is murky, so you can’t always do it.

Michael Shannon plays the lead.  I could watch him in anything.  And when I looked back after his outstanding Oscar-nominated work in Revolutionary Road, I realized that I have seen him in everything over the years.  He sinks his teeth into the investigator role here.  Drained of color, the photography also turned me on to the film.  Some of the darkest images I’ve ever seen, not in tone nor production design.  Just actual light.  In one sequence, a close-up of Shannon hardly even picks up on the whites of his eyes.  It was a calculated risk and one that surely hurt distribution, but as me, five other loaners, the editor and her friend know, one worth checking out.