Crappy film

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

It is interesting that "8MM," with a plot so similar, came out the same year. I found this film more interesting and believable and far less dark and stomach-turning. It is well-filmed and acted with some interesting locations. The tension is well-metered. I enjoyed the colorfulness of the filming. The cosmopolitan/European flavor lends a great deal. I enjoyed the music as well. I would see this film again with a friend.

For Daniel Auteuil, `Queen Margot' was much better. For Nastassja Kinski, `Paris, Texas' was much better. The biggest disappointments were from Chris Menges (`CrissCross' and `A World Apart' cannot even be compared with this one), and Goran Bregovic for use of a version of the same musical theme from `Queen Margot' for this movie (Attention to the end of the film). If this was an American pop movie, I would not feel surprised at all; but for a European film with more independent actors and director, a similar common approach about child abuse with no original insight is very simple-minded and disappointing. There are those bad guys who kidnap and sell the underage people. There are those poor children who hate people selling them and wait to be saved by someone. And finally, there is that big hero who kills all the bad guys and saves these poor children from bad guys. Every character is shown in simple black and white terms: the good versus the evil. Plus, from the very beginning, I could understand how the story would end. Is this the end of the history of child sexual abuse? I believe that the difficult issue of child molestation and paedophilia is much more complex than how it is portrayed in this not very original movie. I think this movie was not disturbing, but very disappointing.

Taking a subject as controversial as paedophilia and attempting to build a routine detective story around it is prone to failure, not least because it is very easy to appear sensational and exploitative. Having said that 'The Lost Son' doesn't fall down on that count, but instead disappoints because it isn't bold enough. For two thirds of the film we have the basis of a great detective story, which only falters when the director feels the need to throw in a few heroics, and sentimentalities. When Lombard delivers the saved children, by truck, into the arms of the priest, he's almost saint-like - and it's just a bit too trite. I was also letdown by the 'twist' ending, which was totally expected. Shot mostly on location in London, the film captures the claustrophobia and loneliness of Lombard's existence since the death of his wife and child, the catalyst for his own need to run away. Moving the action to Mexico destroys the sense of isolation and spoils the flow of the film immensely. Auteil's performance as the hard-bitten private investigator veers away from cliche because you really can believe in this man's story. He himself is a 'lost son', searching for some meaning to exorcise his own demons, and sorting out other people's problems while trying to bury his own. It is telling that his only real friend is a prostitute, and his life tends to revolve around those close to the 'business' he so ardently abhors.'The Lost Son' isn't an easy film to watch, and doesn't deliver on all it promises, with a tendency to favour flashiness over a fleshed out story. But worth seeing, nonetheless.

Auteuil is magnificent as the French loner who has somehow become a lost soul among the shadows of London's West End. The private detective, who discovers the cracks in his own life though an investigation that leads him through the seedy underworld of the child prostitution trade, takes us through the shoking stages of his discovery with much suspense. One of the best modern detective stories to have been filmed in London for many years and a film that deserves much better attention than it got when first released.