Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12413 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-02-21
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 117 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
The peril facing a lone American amid Third World political turmoil is elegantly communicated in this important film from Costa-Gavras (Z), adapted by the director and Donald Stewart from Thomas Hauser's nonfiction book. The key to its power onscreen stems from the decision not to center the action merely on the disappearance of Charles Horman (John Shea), but also on the search for him by his father Ed (Jack Lemmon)--and on Ed's discovery of a son he never knew. The Oscar-winning script flows freely between that search and Charles's earlier experiences in the unnamed country (in the true account, Chile). Providing a link between those two stories is Charles's wife Beth (Sissy Spacek), who follows her father-in-law around a country in chaos, teeming with reckless authority and disinterested American diplomats (epitomised by ace character actor David Clennon). The film, which was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar and won the Cannes Film Festival's top prize, is certainly manipulative, but it works because of its finely detailed human elements. Usually emotionally extroverted, Lemmon gives one of his finest performances playing against that type--here, he's a controlled, intellectual man who learns more about his son, and his country, than he ever dreamed he would. --Doug Thomas

Synopsis
A young American journalist mysteriously disappears in Chile, shortly after the U.S. involved coup that overthrew the Allende regime in 1973. Based on the true, unsolved story of Charles Horman.