The Disappearance

Director Stuart Cooper, about whom I know nothing, gets his cinematography and editing teams to produce a sweeping visual job of Canadian snow-laden landscapes, Montreal buildings and river, lush English forests, and luscious Francine Racette, Sutherland's real life wife, that keeps you watching in earnest. Very good support cast includes John Hurt, David Hemmings, Peter Bowles, the ever beautiful and classy Virginia McKenna and, of course, Sutherland's fellow Canadian-born actor, Christopher Plummer.

Sutherland's tall, slender figure, is emphasized throughout in stylish photography and lit background shots, and his chemistry with gorgeous Racette is palpable, adding believability to his situation as the husband missing his beloved wife, who has disappeared. Has she left him out of boredom? Has she found another love interest - after all, she leaves then hubby Hemmings at the party for sex with Sutherland? Or are there darker forces involved and she has been abducted? Or worse?

Flashbacks explain it. For a tad patient viewer it can make for rewarding cinema and storytelling, even if why Sutherland became a hitman in the first place is not disclosed (I did get the impression, though, that he needed Francine in his life to keep the right mental attitude to killing, as signs of burnout and wanting to leave the profession begin to emerge).

Such questionable moral and professional values aside, THE DISAPPEARANCE deserves attentive watching. 8/10.