I have always been someone that has enjoyed found footage-style movies. While many will cite The Blair Witch Project as the one that got them into this genre, for me it was The Last Broadcast and Alien Abduction: The McPherson Tape that won me over. Anyway, what we have here with Searching is a clever modern twist on the found footage style of doing a movie.
How to Download Searching
You can download or stream the film from a digital platform. Click on the Download button at the end of this review and make your choice.
The Movie Review
Technically “found footage” is not what this is, but I do feel it is the best comparison. Instead of the movie unfolding on an old VHS that was found, here the movie all takes place on computer and phone screens. When I first found out about Searching I thought that it sounded interesting, but I wondered just how good a movie presented in this way could be.
Well, Searching is a fantastic mystery/thriller movie that had me wondering what the heck was going on the whole time! If you love movies that try and make you figure out what is going on as it unfolds, you will have a great time with this. Some folks do say that it gets a tad far-fetched as it reaches the end and I can see, that, but it does not take away from the fun.
The story of Searching is that we have a widowed man called David Kim. David lives in California with his daughter Margot and the two have really struggled to get over her death. David wakes up to find that Margot is not at home so he calls her piano instructor where she had a lesson the day before, only to be told that she quit around six months ago!
You see, Margot had changed greatly after her mother passed, but she put on a brave face and I guess you could say “act” in front of her dad. David starts to panic and he goes to the police where Detective Rosemary Vick is on the case and is trying to help David piece things together.
This is such a great mystery and the way it uses phone footage, emails, and so on to paint a picture of Margot is just so clever. You truly do feel for David as he frantically does all he can to try and find out what happened to his daughter. Let me tell you, John Choo has come a hell of a long way from one of the MILF guys from American Pie!
As more and more of what Margot was doing in the days leading up to her disappearance are revealed, you are left with even more questions than you have answers! The whole way this mystery unfolds is handled so incredibly well and I have to say that I did not see the big twist coming at all which is always something I love in a thriller.
However, I will say because of the nature of the movie and the fact it does have this big twist, I am not sure this is the kind of movie that I could watch time and time again. I recently watched it before I saw Missing, and while it was good. As I knew the twist, it had lost the magic it had on my first viewing, but to be fair, you can say that about most movies with a mystery.
Searching was a very clever idea for a movie and I feel that they pulled it off perfectly. It tells a great missing person style of story that is told in a very unique way. I highly recommend that you check this out. Then, if you like it, I also suggest you check out the sequel, Missing as I feel that is even a little bit better than this
