There's no doubt that this movie brings forth feelings of sympathy from anyone who watches it. You feel sorry for everyone: for Pat and Beth, whose 3 year old son is kidnapped; for Vincent, who loses his brother; for Carrie, who never knew her brother; for Sam/Ben, who was kidnapped and lost all memory of his birth family and ends up being torn away from everything he knows; for George, who unknowingly adopts Sam/Ben as his son and then loses him. Everyone in this is a sympathetic character. So, the movie pulls the heartstrings well, but in the end offered very little depth to either the subject matter or the characters. It came across to me as superficial - it introduces the issue but only scratches the surface. Maybe that's inevitable in a movie dealing with such a difficult subject, or maybe it was just the result of a poorly constructed movie that tried to give us a sense of everyone's feelings, when it might have been more powerful had it focused on just one of the characters, and how they reacted to this insane situation. Then, it makes the biggest mistake it could have made - going for the happy, sappy ending, which was just too easy. Yes, there was a sense of uncertainty to the ending, as Sam/Ben admits to Vincent that he doesn't know if his decision to move back with the Cappadoras is "permanent," but it still seemed too fairy-tale to me.
The opening of the movie works. It draws you in as you share the growing sense of panic after Ben goes missing. Unfortunately, the plot ends up being driven by a device that's just too contrived - Sam/Ben and his adoptive father living just two blocks away from the house the Cappadoras move to in Chicago, and Beth recognizing him when he shows up offering to cut their grass. I also found Whoopi Goldberg's character of Det. Candy Bliss distracting and unnecessary - and why would anyone care that she was a lesbian? That revelation came out of the blue and served no purpose whatsoever. That does, however, serve as a good illustration of another overall problem with this. Some of the script seemed poorly thought out and had little purpose: either either too cliché for the situation or extraneous to the story. The basics of the story are interesting enough to keep the viewer watching, but as a two-hour drama, it's really not that well constructed.
The opening of the movie works. It draws you in as you share the growing sense of panic after Ben goes missing. Unfortunately, the plot ends up being driven by a device that's just too contrived - Sam/Ben and his adoptive father living just two blocks away from the house the Cappadoras move to in Chicago, and Beth recognizing him when he shows up offering to cut their grass. I also found Whoopi Goldberg's character of Det. Candy Bliss distracting and unnecessary - and why would anyone care that she was a lesbian? That revelation came out of the blue and served no purpose whatsoever. That does, however, serve as a good illustration of another overall problem with this. Some of the script seemed poorly thought out and had little purpose: either either too cliché for the situation or extraneous to the story. The basics of the story are interesting enough to keep the viewer watching, but as a two-hour drama, it's really not that well constructed.