LAST SEEN AT ANGKOR
Directed by Michael R. Morris
Singapore/2006 – 85 minutes/Wides
DVD Provided by Life Size Entertainment
Article written by Craig Hamann

Four years ago Jeremy Oden’s fiancée Katie went missing somewhere in Thailand. He has no idea where she is, only that she disappeared shortly after he proposed marriage to her. Currently, his only recollections of her before the time of her disappearance come in disjointed flashbacks that he can’t piece together. Part of this might be from the trauma of losing the love of his life, while part of it could be the end result of a bad drug problem he has had to overcome. Whatever the case, Jeremy hopes to find Katie and solve the mystery of her disappearance once and for all. Out of desperation, he hires Lo Jin, a private detective from Singapore. Together they search for Katie and end up in the middle of a seamy arena of Asian prostitution and female kidnapping. Is this where they will find Katie? Can Jeremy trust Lo Jin or is the private eye really another player in the underground world of flesh marketing? And what is the real truth behind Jeremy’s flashbacks and memory lapses?

Normally speaking I’m a sucker for a good mystery. Remember, I said a “good” one. Unfortunately, writer/director Michael R. Morris misses the mark by a mile with LAST SEEN AT ANGKOR, a muddled thriller that is ambitiously produced but languidly executed. Although the story contains a rather cool twist during the third act, overall the screenplay is too placidly written to be entertaining. The story doesn’t ever gradually mount any tension or gain any momentum. Instead, the plot floats dead in the water as the lead character ambles his way through a series of fairly boring episodic incidents. It’s not that the idea for the story is invalid. This should and could have been a taut psychological thriller, but the tautness never emerges in the screenplay and that seems to infect every other aspect of the production.

Any time a movie takes the viewer into the underbelly of corruption, it needs to have some kind of dramatic spark from the director that gives the picture an edge. Morris might be a competent filmmaker but he doesn’t offer anything visually unique in this project, which results in the viewer feeling detached from the subject matter. The shots are neither gritty in a documentarian way nor are they aggressively expressed in a creative fashion. Many of the scenes fall flat and are far too passively framed. It’s almost as if director Morris doesn’t feel the anxiety and nervous helplessness that should be overwhelming his lead character. If the director doesn’t express any urgency in his vision and can’t visually empathize with his protagonist, then why should the audience be interested? By the way, the acting doesn’t help Morris either. None of the performances seem natural or believable, including Morris’ self-cast turn as Jeremy or Wee Hong Thomas as Lo Jin.

Life Size Entertainment offers a disc with a good amount of extras, including a feature commentary with Morris and several of the actors, outtakes with deleted scenes, a NYU student film, and trailers for other releases. There is no denying that this is an ambitious production on many levels. However, while the Thailand and Cambodian backdrops are nice to look at, the muddy sound and washed out picture quality make this an unattractive watch for genre fans. The fact that LAST SEEN AT ANGKOR is a thriller with a flat-line plot pulse doesn’t help either.