Ed Horman filed suit charging eleven government officials, including Henry A. Kissinger, with complicity and negligence in the death of his son. The body was not returned home until seven months later, making an accurate autopsy impossible. After years of litigation, the information necessary to prove or disprove complicity remained classified as secrets of state. The suit was dismissed.
Why it’s a left-wing film
Outside of some pretty weak American films that strained themselves in their reach for importance (“Betrayed,” “The Music Box,” Mad City”), Greek director Constantin Costa-Gavras is best known as the helmer of French political thrillers that usually condemn the West, his most famous being 1969’s “Z.” To me Costa-Garvas is most famous for being dull and over-rated; that is, with the exception of “Missing,” an emotionally searing political thriller about a conservative father’s search for his estranged son in a Latin American country torn apart by the after-effects of a bloody military coup.
Like Oliver Stone’s “Salvador,” “Missing” examines what happens to an American journalist (Charles Horman, played John Shea) caught up in a third world political upheaval orchestrated with the covert and illegal help of the United States. The story opens with narration making clear that while what we’re about to see is based on a true story, changes have been made to protect the participants and the film itself. One of the precautions the director takes is to never name the country in which his story is set, but the real-life Horman disappeared in Chile during the 1973 military coup that deposed the democratically elected socialist government there.
While in reality, the United States did back the new Chilean government after the coup, our government had nothing to do with the coup itself, though naturally the position of the film is the exact opposite. Actually, it’s much worse than that. Costa-Garvas and company want us to believe the American government was complicit, not only in engineering the coup (through the CIA, natch), but that we went so far to cover up our involvement that we gave the new Chilean government the okey-doke to execute left-wing journo Horman and maybe a few others who had uncovered the truth.
Why it’s a great film
For all the wonderful actors who have passed away during my lifetime, no one’s death has affected me more than The Mighty Jack Lemmon’s. The two-time Oscar winner died over nine years ago and yet to this very day just the thought of his passing gives me pause. Obviously he was a wonderful actor and by every account a genuinely decent human being, but so were many others whose death hasn’t laid a permanent funk on my psyche. I think this partly has to do with the fact that Lemmon was one of the few actors who was as much a part of the Golden Age as he was the 1980s and 1990s. Jack Lemmon was always there, always a star, always making terrific films. It’s not like he retired, gave us time to miss him, and then passed on years later. He was a steady, welcome, warm and wonderful constant all throughout my life.
And then he wasn’t.
And that sucks.
And because it’s Jack Lemmon playing the lead role in “Missing,” no matter how manipulative and dishonest the politics at work are, the story of Ed Horman’s desperate search for his son is impossible not to sympathize with or to become emotionally invested in. Watching this uncommonly decent man slowly stripped of everything he believes in with respect to his faith in America; watching him systematically picked apart by despicable American bureaucrats, State Department officials, and military personnel who alternately stall and patronize a heartsick father all in a twisted effort to cover up their own complicity in his son’s death is enough to make you want to throw something at the screen.
The Oscar-winning script, co-written by Costa-Garvas, is also effective because it’s very, very subtle when it comes to the politics and without ever once becoming maudlin remains focused on the emotional journey of the central character. Wisely, the trash-America agenda never announces itself. There’s never one of those on-the-nose “you were right” speeches given by Lemmon’s character. Instead, this develops naturally as we’re caught up in the suspenseful, engrossing, and frequently horrifying mystery that unfolds, the relationship that develops between Ed and his daughter-in-law Beth (Sissy Spacek), and our own desire to see father and son reunited. Another beautiful touch the script adds is how, for the first time, Ed gets to know his son through his search for him. Torn apart by political and generational differences, father and son were estranged, but through the eyes of his wife and friends, Ed finally meets the brave and respected man his irresponsible boy grew into.
The last few times I’ve watched “Missing” it’s only been for work-related reasons like this countdown, and every time I’ve hit “play” it’s been with a chip on my shoulder due to the film’s dishonest political agenda. Throughout the first act, that chip manages to remain in place but once Lemmon’s character arrives about 25 minutes in, it completely dissolves and the story owns me. More proof that the power of an engrossing story and script anchored by an actor with decades of built-in audience goodwill can transcend most anything.
“Missing” is a lie told by liars. But it’s a beautifully told one.
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