The fact that this movie has Kiefer Sutherland (when he was on top of his game,) Jeff Daniels (before he was on top of his) and Sandra Bullock (before most people knew who she was) in it, should be reason enough to watch this. The fact that it is a haunting and inventive thriller that will leave you thinking about it long after it is over is another reason.
I have to be very careful how i tell this because there are some critical elements that I must be careful to not reveal. Let's just say that this is not your typical Hollywood film and to be fair that is probably because it is a remake of a 1988 French-Dutch film.
I can tell you that Jeff (Kiefer Sutherland) is on vacation with his girlfriend Dianne( Bullock) when at a gas station she doesn't come back to the car. Jeff doesn't know what happenned to her but it turns out that Barney (Jeff Bridges) does know. He contacts Jeff 3-years after Diane's disappearance to let him know that he will tell him what happened to her, but will only tell him by having him experience exactly what happened to her.
I'm not being very fair to Nancy Travis as she is easily as much of this film as anyone else but I can't recall who she is. Perhaps that is just me. She does great in this film

I think the movie was perfectly cast but ultimately it was very poorly received by critics (imagine that) because they were very hung up on the original. I think that anyone who has seen the original will agree with them, but if you have not, this one is pretty scary on its own also.
Overall, this movie DOES in fact suffer from an inferiority complex compared to the original - however i think this is true of a vast majority of Hollywood remakes of foreign films so this should come as no surprise. However, if you have a chance to see this movie I highly suggest it because it stands on its own if you are unfamiliar with the original film which had a budget 1/14th of this one. My rating is based on this movie existing on its own, and am not attempting to compare it to the original at all - because I have not seent it.


