ChicRawIdol
A brilliant film that helped define a genre
AshUnow
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Kamila Bell
This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
macbethp
Good film in many ways but even when I saw it back in the early 80's, I doubted that Alex would run joyfully towards his mother after months away from her. Anger "why didn't you come get me?" would be his reaction. In today's news: a 6 year old Guatemalan boy was reunited w/his father after 2 months. That poor little boy had no response, physical or emotional, to his crying dad.
Tony
This film draws you in with characters and events like any good crime mystery novel would. The cast are excellent in their portrayals. If you don't know the story it's based on you'll probably figure it out soon on, or maybe see something of the dreaded red herring. Just watch it and enjoy storytelling that doesn't need SFX let alone CGI.
dtucker86
Kate Nelligan and Judd Hirsch both give outstanding performances as the mother of a missing child and the detective determined to find him. I felt so bad for this poor woman when her little boy disappeared. Nelligan wonderfully conveys this mother's anguish and you feel angry on her behalf when they question her about her being the guilty party! Judd Hirsch had been nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor for his role in Ordinary People and he proves here that it wasn't a lucky fluke. He plays a man who is a tough, professional police officer, but at the same time he still has a caring heart and feels for this poor mother. He plays a tough sob with his heart on his sleeve so wonderfully. It is a tribute to these two fine actors that they make their characters seem so real that your heart aches for them. Actually, there are many children who vanish in the United States every year, most of these are runaways or children who are abducted by non-custodial parents. "Stranger" abductions are really very rare, but they are the most heartbreaking and tragic, like Adam Walsh's abduction. This film SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT, had an ending that was one of the happiest that I have ever seen in a movie. I saw Without A Trace two decades ago and I still remember how I felt like rejoicing like a sinner in church when Alex was found and they brought him home! I almost cried because I only wish that real life could be like this and that all abducted children could return home. I wanted to point out that this movie is based on a real life child abduction that has not had a happy ending at all. In May of 1979, a little boy in New York named Etan Patz left to go to his bus stop to go to school and disappeared without a trace. He was finally declared legally dead a few years ago. Many people have credited the disappearance of Etan Patz with awakening people to the plight of missing children.
westsidedude2001
I can't believe that a movie could cause such an emotional upheaval in my body. I cried because the character development between the boy and his mother was very good. Judd Hirsch did a great job as the detective willing to go out on a limb for the mother. This was a good movie back in 1983 and still a good video to watch.
