Not forgotten
Language : English / Spanish
Year of release : 2009
Run time : 1h37m
Genre : Thriller / Indie
Cast : Simon Baker, Paz Vega, Chloe Grace Moretz
The independent thriller was written and directed by Dror Soref.
The movie opens with the Santa Muerte cult enchanting and putting a spell on someone, while a man who’s face we can’t see enters his home and k1lls him.
We then see Jack Bishop, who’s daughter has the weekly soccer (in Europe we call this football and is a men’s sport. I keep on seeing in US movies that there it’s a women’s sport! In here women don’t like soccer! I hate it.) game.
They live with his new wife in Del Rio,Texas, a town at the border with Mexico.
While he goes buying for hot dogs for their whole team, Toby (what kind of name is this for a girl?) goes missing, and Jack goes looking for her, and finds her looking through the window at a Santa Muerte ritual.
When she makes the bed, Amaya sees a red stain on the sheets, and realizes Toby, who’s 11, got her period (no girl would leave that sheet there if it had a stain on it (unless she’s a pig),she’d throw it in water or the washing machine embarrassed that someone might see it!).
The next morning he’s taking his daughter to school, and his wife to her job. His daughter, who’s only 11, puts lipstick on (in my time, I didn’t wear make-up in school, especially at that age).
Later that day, coming from work to Toby’s practice as he’s the coach, she’s nowhere to be found.
Looking for her by a river, he finds the Devil card which he saw the previous day when he bought hot dogs, from a man who was playing cards at a table.
They find her sports shoe, and he drives to the police station, as his wife’s cousin is the new sheriff, who doesn’t really know what to do in such situations.
They look for the registered s3x offenders in the 100 miles radius, and find one. The man says he didn’t do it.
Interrogated by the police about Toby, her family says her biological mother died of cancer when she was a baby. Jack is asked if he has a criminal record or if he ever fought with anyone or cheated on his wife, to which he says No. They film a news segment, asking for Toby to come home.
We see Toby tied in a van, but then we see her in the Santa Muerte cult, so she’s fine.
Amaya convinces Jack to go to an old woman across the border, who sees things, to find out where Toby is, and she tells them in Spanish, about a red flower curtain, basically the murder scene which opens the movie.
The FBI get involved, and they find Jack’s criminal record, as apparently he is not Jack but Roberto.
Trying to find his daughter, and escape the cops which put him in jail, Jack / Roberto goes through the places of his youth where every working girl recognizes him.
The whole time on tv it’s a segment about the Santa Muerte worship considered devil worship, which is supposed to be famous around drug dealers and prostitutes, being connected to revenge k1llings.
I loved this movie the first time I watched it, back in 2009-2010, now, not so much, because it didn’t make sense. SPOILERS Amaya with her relatives kidnapped Toby to get her vengeance on him for k1lling her father when she was a kid. So she went as far as to sleep and marry ( for 3 years), a man she hated! Make it make sense! You marry and f@k the one you hate to get vengeance for him k1lling your dad?! Not to mention, she turns the kid against him, so she’ll do to him the same thing! Everything she does with him in the movie is staged. It was just dumb!
Toby (she was in on the kidnapping the whole time) is brainwashed by Amaya and the Santa Muerte cult she wanted to join, being initiated into it, while her father was looking frantically for her, and swears revenge on him for k1lling her mother, because him going through her disappearance wasn’t punishment enough, I guess! By the way, he k1lls her mother thinking she took her now!
It also didn’t make sense why Jack as Roberto left with the child, he could have taken his wife with them too! I doubt she didn’t want to leave that life behind! END OF SPOILERS
The movie is narrated by the kid, which again, was off.
As the movie progresses, we see Jack is also into Santa Muerte as whenever he wants to harm someone he does a sort of binding ritual.
I don’t know if the sheriff really didn’t know his job, as his female co-worker did everything in his place (she should have been sheriff, not him), or he just pretended, as we see the reveal at the end.
The acting was good, especially from Simon Baker.
Claire Forlani has a small role, like a cameo.
The soundtrack was Ok, is related to what the people of the area were listening to.
The movie received negative reviews (with only 21% from the critics, and 17% from the audience on Rotten Tomatoes, and a higher one on Metacritic, with a 48 metascore and a 7.0 user score ), and grossed only a little over 142.000 dollars at the box office!
Viewer discretion is advised, as the movie contains nudity.
You can watch the full movie on the Ok.Ru platform for free.
https://ok.ru/video/3871954962999
Rating : Could have been a contender !