Based loosely on the 1900 disappearance of three lighthouse keepers who were stationed at the Flannan Isles Lighthouse off the coast of Scotland, The Vanishing proposes a what if scenario of psychological thriller proportions. The fact that the actual mystery was never solved leaves the field wide open as to the actual cause.
Director Kristoffer Nyholm (Taboo and The Killing) helps to craft an earthy existence on the lonely island. One filled with great accents, male bonding and an over riding sense of tension. Gerard Butler, Peter Mullan and Connor Swindells star as the three lighthouse men and the casting really works.
Butler and Mullan are the grizzled veterans with beards and crinkled brows, while Swindells is the fresh faced new recruit. When a mysterious man washes up on shore, it sets off a chain of events that will lead to an escalating atmosphere of impending doom.
The film’s pace incrementally delivers information as we learn of the island’s lone inhabitants and the life tales that brought them to this isolated place. It’s to the film’s quality that we get to know them and feel for their plight even as human nature takes over as things start to unravel.
Rob Hudson
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