The premise is simple; Telly Paretta (played by the lovely Julianne Moore) lost her son Sam (Christopher Kovaleski) in a plane crash 14 months ago but something inside Telly just won’t let him go. Like a zombie, she goes through the same routine every day, watches videos of him, looks through photo albums and remembers, vividly. That’s when all the trouble begins, pictures start to disappear, her husband Jim (Anthony Edwards) refuses to acknowledge that they have a son, her psychiatrist played by Gary Sinise tells her that she made the whole thing up.

You might start thinking great “grab the Kleenex” as we watch poor Julianne Moore slip slowly into insanity … as great as that would be … that’s not this movie. No, this is a thriller. Once the Feds step in, there’s car chases, shootouts and explosions enough to keep you on the edge of your seat (remember, there’s plenty of space behind you, sit back relax). Why are the Feds interested in a woman everyone says is insane? Well, I’ll let you go see the movie for that answer.

The key to this movie’s success is to know as little as possible about it before going in, it’s not a surprise ending. There are no twists or misdirection’s just a good hard shock to the system. As you get settled in for a conspiracy filled political action thriller, the movie hits you with ten pounds of Sci-Fi in a five-pound bag. And that’s the only problem with the movie. This change of direction leaves you with two halves of a story that aren’t very well developed, the conspiracy aspect is left by the wayside after the sci-fi kicks in, and the sci-fi comes up pretty short. In the end, Julianne Moore’s wonderful performance pulls us through and in the end, we find, that we really don’t care that much about the rest of that crap anyway.

I judge all movies as how they compare to the greatest movie of all time, Roadhouse, staring Patrick Swayze. This movie scores 4 out of 5 on the Roadhouse scale, it’s fun, has an interesting plot, and stars Julianne Moore.

"The Forgotten" is currently playing in local theaters.

Starring: Julianne Moore, Dominic West, Anthony Edwards, Gary Sinise
Directed By: Joseph Ruben
Rating: PG-13 (Violence, Language)

David can be contacted at dkerr@detroitbuzz.com