'Lost' finds the perfect role for Dean Cain
The actor plays a man facing an increasingly nightmarish situation in a smashing debut from a first-time director.
May 13, 2005|Kevin Thomas | Times Staff Writer
"Lost," a taut thriller in the best B-picture tradition, has a title that has more than one meaning. It's soon clear that Dean Cain's Jeremy Stanton, a Santa Barbara bank vice president, has not only lost his way in the Mojave Desert because of a maze of flood-closed roads but also lost his bearings as a man.
If there's any justice, this should be a breakthrough film for Cain, who since the end of his "Lois & Clark" TV series has appeared in some venturesome independent movies. "Lost" comes close to being a one-man show, with Cain on camera virtually throughout and only passing glimpses of others. He carries the film with ease and holds viewer interest with a strong, complex presence.
In good time, inventive writer-director Darren Lemke, in a sure-footed feature debut, lets the viewer know that Jeremy is not just another guy on his way to meet his wife and son at a new residence in Nevada. It becomes clear that there's an urgent reason that he has to reach his destination within eight hours but that the journey should take only three, yet those detours keep piling up as in a Kafkaesque nightmare.
Ever so gradually, Lemke deftly lassoes in his audience while, bit by bit, revealing what Jeremy is really up to and then introducing a growing element of menace. "Lost" is consistently clever, amusing -- and scary.
Lemke has come up with an array of devices and techniques to engage and sustain interest and to build suspense slowly but with ever-increasing intensity. He skillfully teeters on the edge of plausibility but is a strong enough storyteller to make this approach seem unsettling rather than merely credibility-defying, thus earning the viewer's crucial willingness to suspend disbelief.
Jeremy is constantly on his cellphone to a road-service operator, Judy (voice of Ashley Scott), for directions that are none too clear and definitely out of date. He also listens to the tapes of the Audio Guru (Paul Boehmer), who offers baldly self-evident advice, reiterated in chapter headings. The more Lemke reveals about Jeremy and the more frustrated he becomes, the more it triggers flashbacks that fill in the story.
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The actor plays a man facing an increasingly nightmarish situation in a smashing debut from a first-time director.
May 13, 2005|Kevin Thomas | Times Staff Writer
"Lost," a taut thriller in the best B-picture tradition, has a title that has more than one meaning. It's soon clear that Dean Cain's Jeremy Stanton, a Santa Barbara bank vice president, has not only lost his way in the Mojave Desert because of a maze of flood-closed roads but also lost his bearings as a man.
If there's any justice, this should be a breakthrough film for Cain, who since the end of his "Lois & Clark" TV series has appeared in some venturesome independent movies. "Lost" comes close to being a one-man show, with Cain on camera virtually throughout and only passing glimpses of others. He carries the film with ease and holds viewer interest with a strong, complex presence.
In good time, inventive writer-director Darren Lemke, in a sure-footed feature debut, lets the viewer know that Jeremy is not just another guy on his way to meet his wife and son at a new residence in Nevada. It becomes clear that there's an urgent reason that he has to reach his destination within eight hours but that the journey should take only three, yet those detours keep piling up as in a Kafkaesque nightmare.
Ever so gradually, Lemke deftly lassoes in his audience while, bit by bit, revealing what Jeremy is really up to and then introducing a growing element of menace. "Lost" is consistently clever, amusing -- and scary.
Lemke has come up with an array of devices and techniques to engage and sustain interest and to build suspense slowly but with ever-increasing intensity. He skillfully teeters on the edge of plausibility but is a strong enough storyteller to make this approach seem unsettling rather than merely credibility-defying, thus earning the viewer's crucial willingness to suspend disbelief.
Jeremy is constantly on his cellphone to a road-service operator, Judy (voice of Ashley Scott), for directions that are none too clear and definitely out of date. He also listens to the tapes of the Audio Guru (Paul Boehmer), who offers baldly self-evident advice, reiterated in chapter headings. The more Lemke reveals about Jeremy and the more frustrated he becomes, the more it triggers flashbacks that fill in the story.
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