Gone (VI) (2006) User Reviews

An Australian outback thriller with potential, but went nowhere

[theboltman · 5/10 · 29 July 2007]

I really wanted to enjoy this movie. I sat down by myself when i was sick and watched it with no interruptions. It was however, ultimately disappointing Other than the main characters not forming well enough for the audience to actually care about them, the movie was so frustrating in so many parts. The storyline is formed around 2 dopey people who are in a relationship that is shabby. There are so many times throughout the movie that if they actually just talked about their feelings OR treated the other person with respect and showed some trust, the entire plot would have fallen apart. (but than we wouldn't have a movie) So what we end up with is a movie that has a plot, although quite shallow, based on characters that are annoying.

If it wasn't so frustrating, it could have gotten a 7, but instead it gets a 5/10, and that is being generous

A study in psychotic behaviour

[greene-1 · 6/10 · 11 March 2007]

In this film a UK couple travelling across Australia, pal up with an easy-going American who turns out to have a 'dark-side'.

This film scores in the respect that the way the American gradually reveals his hidden character is quite subtle. He manipulates the couple into turning against each other and then uses the chasm he creates to perform a divide-and-conquer type operation.

The film falls short in as much the female, as the easily duped girlfriend, isn't quite believable, and seems so gullible that if you told her with a cute smile that her panties were on fire she'd probably go and jump in a lake. Although I think this can be accounted for by the script.

Also the ending is quite silly.

Surprisingly good

[sophiewessberg · 6/10 · 14 November 2007]

Gone sure is a surprise - I didn't expect it to be as good. The soundtrack is almost perfect. All of the actors are good, but Scott Mechlowicz in particular. I first discovered him in Mean Creek (2005), and I must admit that although his character in Gone isn't nearly as moving and interesting, he delivers a solid performance that almost makes me sympathize with Taylor.

The pacing is somewhat off, and unfortunately, the suspenseful beginning is quickly brought to an end towards the end of the movie where the clicheés line up and actually make me cringe. The last twenty minutes, Gone transforms into a typical horror film, which is a shame, since the story does have potential in the beginning.

pretty good

[Agnelin · 22 August 2007]

I didn't know what to expect from this movie, and knew very little about it; only that it was a thriller, and a bit of the storyline. Now that I've seen it, I have to say I'm very positively impressed.

The movie follows Brits Alex and Sophie on a road trip around Australia. They've both agreed to meet in Australia, and, before they do so, Alex has met Taylor, a mysterious American who offers to drive him around. The movie has a very fitting introduction about how the two boys meet in a fun atmosphere, which gradually becomes gloomier and full of menace as we find out about Taylor's dark side.

It's plain to see that the story isn't original at all, but it is very well and efficiently told. As other commenters have pointed out, one of the movie's great points is that Taylor's psychotic personality is revealed subtly and slowly, which makes him all the more believable. Also, while not original, the movie isn't all that predictable and the suspense is very well carried along. The acting is also very good; I especially liked Amelia Warner as Sophie. I also found it remarkable that the settings -it's located in some of Australia's deserts, of extreme and solitary beauty- and the fact that it's almost exclusively based on three characters come together admirably to produce a feeling of isolation, claustrophobia and paranoia.

The only real weak point about the movie is the lack of character development; I was left wanting to know more about them. This, however, didn't stop me from enjoying it. It's a nice little surprise that I recommend to all thriller lovers.

Absurd characters with no sense keep a thin plot afloat just barely

[JBoze313 · 3/10 · 11 April 2010]

This sounds like a nice premise. A British couple in Australia who meet up with a psychotic American who seems nice at first but turns deadly.

Unfortunately, this isn't really what happens...the guy slowly becomes weird and creepy, but it's all completely one sided.

Alex arrives alone in Australia and will meet his girlfriend Sophie in a couple of days. Taylor meets him and invites him for drinks the night Alex arrives in Australia sans Sophie. Alex gets drunk and falls asleep next to a girl and Taylor gets a polaroid of it...just a taste of the creepiness to come. When Sophie arrives, Taylor brings out his massive stack of polaroids (weird), and proceeds to toss the photo of Alex and the girl into the trash. Except he never really throws it away and holds it over Alex's head. Slowly, Taylor starts making it seem that he and Sophie have a thing going on, doing everything he can to turn the lovers against each other.

This is either a horror movie or a thriller as described on this site and the on screen guide when I watched it on Chiller. Unfortunately, it's neither thrilling nor horrifying, and Taylor isn't really all that weird. We get the impression that he's probably pretty dark deep down inside his core, but he's more malicious in small ways. For example, he sees Alex come into the bar where he and Sophie are sitting together, Sophie's back to the door- he immediately pretends to have a burning in his hand, so Sophie grabs it, making it look to Alex as if they're holding hands. (thrillingly scary and creepy!) The fact is, all Alex has to do is say- look, Sophie, I fell asleep next to some girl, nothing happened, but this guy keeps popping out this pic and being creepy weird. Sophie, if she had any sense, would say, "okay, honey. Let's head off without him." Too bad the characters are dreadfully stupid. They do everything they SHOULDN'T do in a movie like this, and that makes it all tedious and frustrating. When about 20 mins before the end, it gets really dumb. I won't ruin the ending, but let's say it's just as stupid as the rest of the film.

The acting is decent, I guess. It's hard to tell, as they all have so little to work with. They're just basically cruising around from place to place, not doing much, drinking a lot, arguing a bit here and there, and just being completely dumb characters. Taylor isn't some evil super genius, and he doesn't need to be. He only needs to find a couple who are so desperately stupid, they'd fall for any dumb tactics, and he's set.

Dumb characters ruin what sounds like a good premise. On top of that, very little takes place in the movie. With 15 mins left in the flick, you're wondering if anything IS going to happen at all. No thrills to be had here, I can assure you.

Nice scenery, nice setting, fantastic premise, but poorly executed in every manner. Skip it.

A Suspenseful Road Movie in the Outback

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 3 August 2012]

When the British Alex (Shaun Evans) arrives alone in Sydney, he meets the handsome American Taylor (Scott Mechlowicz) that invites him to drink in a bar. On the next morning, Alex awakes completely wasted sleeping with a girl on the floor and Taylor takes a Polaroid picture of them.

Alex is going to Byron to meet his girlfriend Sophie (Amelia Warner) and Taylor offers a lift to him. Sophie introduces her friend Ingrid (Zoe Tuckwell-Smith) to Taylor and the two couples plan to travel together; however Ingrid does not meet them and Taylor tells that she had decided to travel with a girlfriend instead.

Along the journey, Alex finds that Taylor is a manipulative psychopath that is obsessed with Sophie; however, his girlfriend believes that Alex is jealous without any reason and does not give credit to his words. When they have a car accident in a lonely area, Alex is wounded on the head and Taylor manipulates Sophie and Alex intriguing one against the other. When Sophie receives a text from Alex telling that he is gone, she accepts the ride that Taylor offers to her but she finds the truth about her new friend.

"Gone" is a suspenseful road movie in the outback surprisingly good. The plot is developed in slow-pace, with the gorgeous Amelia Warner becoming the obsession of the deranged and manipulative Taylor. Alex has a skeleton in the closet because of the picture that Taylor is blackmailing him and acts weird with his girlfriend. The story is predictable but also entertaining. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Face Oculta do Mal" ("The Hidden Face of Evil")

Pointless

[silver_hedgehog · 2/10 · 11 March 2007]

I can't fathom the point of this film. It's one of those films that if you've watched the trailer beforehand then there are no new or interesting twists or turns to look forward to. The plot development is plodding and predictable. The ending is no surprise. Character development was poor; I really didn't care what happened to any of them. The isolation of and focus on the three central characters created a huge plausibility issue for me. Especially when the character Alex was ill in the motel room suspecting that he had been poisoned. Surely he or his girlfriend would call for help – everybody's heard of the flying doctor service. Instead it's all left to the Taylor character to sort. The opportunities for interesting cinematography of the Australian landscape were not taken up. All in all a wasted trip to the cinema.

A commendable directorial debut from Ringan Ledwidge

[bigjohnny7 · 7/10 · 7 March 2007]

Gone, despite the lame title, is an enjoyable film from first time director Ringan Ledwidge.

A very underplayed thriller revolving around the relationship between a backpacking British couple and a suspicious American, I found the film refreshing for managing to avoid the same traps that most films of this genre stumble with.

The catalyst of the film - the relationship between the two male leads - was handled delicately, full of nuance, and was almost Hitchcockian in its building of suspense.

As the events of the film are comparable to the recent Peter Falconio / Joanne Lees case, it would have been advisable to set the film elsewhere - especially since the vast expanse of the Australian outback has been seen too recently in films like John Hillcoat's 'The Proposition' and Phillip Noyce's 'Rabbit Proof Fence'. A possible alternative for the location of the film could have been New Zealand's South Island - picturesque, isolated, and just as popular with backpackers as Australia.

I was lucky enough to see a preview screening of the film, followed by a Q&A session with Ringan Ledwidge and Amelia Warner. Definitely one to watch, Warner could be a future English rose of the film industry (especially if she manages to avoid wearing orange lamé blouses in public!). Watch this space!

Elsewhere on this site, there is mention of the film being a rip-off of Dead Calm. Although I can see the similarities, Gone is a much more intriguing film. Although the two films deal with the same issues, I see Dead Calm as a popcorn film for the masses. Gone, on the other hand, is much more cerebral and perfect for an audience who appreciates attention to detail.

I would definitely recommend this film to friends.

I've should have rented Crocodile Dundee!

[nvillesanti · 1/10 · 8 June 2010]

This is one of those movies that I couldn't help myself scream at the TV "You stupid morons just keep going your own way!" It was so obvious what is going on that you just hope the main characters pay for their stupidity and ignorance.

The story begins when a young British traveler, by the name Alex, arrives in Sydney and he is schedule to meet with his girlfriend. But before that, he meets another young American traveler by the name of Taylor. Taylor convinces Alex to have a few drinks that first night and meet some girls before Alex gets to his destiny. The next day, Taylor meets Alex girlfriend, Sophie, and immediately becomes obsess with her. Then Taylor devises ways to separate them and gain Sophie's favor to the point of becoming homicidal.

This movie is predictable from the opening credits. The writers didn't develop a plot where they could engage the audience, instead, they wrote a poor, predictable story. Although you might think that the American backpacker is not to be trusted, you know he is the villain the first minute he is introduced in the movie. There are no surprises and movie just drags on to the inevitable conclusion, which in my mind, is pretty lame. Although at a certain point Alex realizes what is going on, he just doesn't do anything to prevent it, and that is what really bothered me about this movie.

Gone tries miserably to be like Psycho and the Hitcher, but instead is an epic fail.

Creepy

[nu-arc · 7/10 · 6 January 2009]

A movie with a feeling of being alone as indicated by the beautiful vegetation of Australia's desert region and feelings of being gone; being so far away from everyone and everywhere for anyone to hear your screams. Again, there is such beauty with scenes of sunsets and vegetation; but it is a perfect time for murder and mystery to begin and spoil the lot! In the beginning of this movie,it seems that one would not expect violence to come in between the characters, but soon; creepy sexual signs develop which can be fatal. Silence is common. And there is such an eerie feeling that someone is going to be trapped in the back of that shambolic 4 wheel-drive.

The title refers to any semblance of common sense

[TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews · 4/10 · 17 November 2011]

A young British couple are travelling through the outback, hitching a ride with a mysterious, charismatic American who becomes increasingly suspect. After this music montages(the first choice doesn't even seem to fit) its way through most of the first third, you might be led to believe that it's picking up. You would be sorely mistaken. It never actually goes anywhere, in spite of genuine potential, and the very last portion of this just gives up on being convincing(especially as far as the actions and logic goes, and it was already on shaky ground). This is a road movie, psychological horror exploitation flick set in Australia, and as such, it is decent. The filming and editing are skillful enough(it even creates mood several times) and there is one or two bits that are downright good. Characters are pretty bland, undeveloped and not entirely credible. Alex, the boyfriend with a secret he doesn't want her to discover, is the best in the latter regard. Their behaviour and poor decision-making abilities keep the paperthin, predictable plot just barely going, until the seemingly ceaseless 80 minutes finally come to a close. Acting isn't bad. This is mostly focused on the three leads, albeit they're not isolated(I expected this to have them stranded and that be a cause of conflict, and it went stupider than that) for more than maybe half of this combined. One has to wonder why they don't simply get out of the situation since that's clearly the smarter option. They have cell phones, too. Operating ones. Yet we're just expected to accept this at face value. For an interesting psycho(whose attraction may not be towards Sophie... not that it actually pays off to notice that) and potentially visually compelling setting(not photographed in any kind of engaging way) and other things I've mentioned, this doesn't actually end up offering anything worth it in return for your investment of time and attention. There is a bit of disturbing content, a little gory/bloody violence and sexuality and momentary nudity in this. The DVD comes with a reasonable and informational enough 29 and a half minute featurette and 8 minutes of deleted(or rather, extended, not to mention padded, no-wonder-these-were-cut) scenes. I recommend this to people who enjoy this kind of thing. 4/10

Kept me gripped from start to finish

[kieransharrock · 8/10 · 14 April 2013]

Although a little predictable this film kept me and all of my family on the edges of our seats.

Scott Mechlowicz as Taylor was understated but eerily evil from the outset.

Shaun Evans, who now plays a young Endeavour Morse, is very good as he slowly falls apart under the strains of Taylor's actions.

Amelia Warner is also believably innocent, but strong when she needs to be.

All in all a tense and satisfying movie. Just the right length for a Saturday night in.

Good Australian Outback Thriller.

[neil-62596 · 7/10 · 3 October 2023]

Had fairly low expectations going into this film... but was pleasantly surprised ! Strangely, what drew me in was the use of "It's all over" by The Broken Family Band on the soundtrack... nicely atmospheric touch, I thought.. (along with the rest of the music in this film.) It's better than average in all departments than other movies I have come across of this type ( filmed in a similar setting).. it relies on various writing & filmmaking techniques to build suspense & menace, without the all too often, excessive use of blood & gore, (although there is some). Director ; actors; writers; cinematographer ... worth watching out for ! .. especially given the budget constraints they were most likely working with.

Plotline is covered in other reviews here.

Another poor attempt to make a horror/thriller

[amy-jane-1 · 1/10 · 15 July 2007]

Another poor attempt to make a horror/thriller.This movie actually starts of OK moving very slowly along but keeping you watching because you want to find out more I thought this film was going to be a good horror/thriller going in to detail about 'Taylors' dark side but it tells you nothing not why he is the way he is or why he does what he does and has a predictable ending which I have seen in movies an endless amount of times before. I don't recommend this film unless you want to waste 90 minutes of your life there was a story here it could have worked if a little more thought had gone into how they was going to draw the film to an end and finding out about 'Taylors' dark side this may have been another cliché horror of psycho in some deserted place killing victims with no explanation of why. The acting was poor, the characters were dumb and unrealistic and you wouldn't actually get any signal in a deserted desert in the outbacks of Australia. I rate this movie 3/10 because it started of OK and kept you watching just a shame they ruined it by making it like most other horror films.

Gone with the windscreen

[dbdumonteil · 27 October 2009]

This is one of the many movies called "gone" made in 2007.This one is a road movie (Australia has become a good place to film such flicks of the genre) and even ,a road movie too many.It cannot hold a candle,for instance ,to "Kalifornia" (1993) and the beautiful landscapes and a superb shot of the Australian sky at dawn can't hide what is definitely lacking: a firm screenplay and elements which would have made Taylor an interesting character .The Taylor/Alex relationship revolves around the latter's girlfriend and it's not enough to keep the movie from being derivative .Only the trick of the phone is pretty smart but the average viewer will have guessed what happened long before the ending.An ending in the grand tradition of "Friday the thirteenth" .Nothing new under the Australian sun.

Who paid whom to make this movie?

[Extinctive · 4/10 · 1 July 2007]

Strangest lamer-movie I've seen in quite some time. I'm surprised it got through to world audiences and nobody was ashamed if it would. Looks like an average film-student's final exam project or something.

The first questions you ask, when looking at this movie, are: Why are they traveling in Australia, and why are they traveling together? I mean really, they don't seem to remotely like each other. Or the outback. And honestly, what's there to like about any of them? Two spoiled little idiot drug-using alcoholics somehow end up in the same car, and the viewer is supposed to care? The only remotely likable character is the girl. But she ruins that by behaving just as stupid as her whore boyfriend did and then accidentally saves herself being a hysterical idiot with a lot of dumb luck.

Douglas Coupland said it best, when he wrote: "I'm holding an 'I Don't Give A Sh*t'-o-meter and the needle's not moving."

Although not very successful, the story is sad.

[yasananlarim · 6/10 · 21 July 2022]

A movie with a good story. I think there are some shortcomings in the story because I didn't feel much after watching the movie. Although not very successful, the story is sad.

in 60 sessions....

[ptb-8 · 2/10 · 27 July 2007]

Oh look... an outback 'thriller' where a couple get menaced by some cretin. aaah... so who exactly greenlit this? GONE opened and closed in Australia in 14 days... thus wasting the time effort money and resources of the film industry yet again making a lame duck movie that copies putrid crap like WOLF CREEK. Want a good outback thriller? then see ROADGAMES directed by the late great Richard Franklin... or internationally the original version of THE HITCHER or even BREAKDOWN... but as we all knew the day before GONE opened, GONE was GONER really. Its 30 something director might need to be original and not copy... or if ya do, kid, copy North By North West instead. Who would leave their home to see this? nobody...again....... Goodbye.... oh, GONE already.

Dull and pointless

[tramsbottom · 3/10 · 11 April 2008]

Utterly derivative psycho on the road movie. We've seen it all before and to make things worse pretty much nothing happens throughout. I looked at the clock after twenty minutes and was still waiting for some semblance of story to begin. I was still waiting after an hour. There's a difference between understated and not stated at all. Who is the creepy Taylor? What happened in Thailand?

Questions are left unanswered and the ending predictable. "Are you f****ing thick?" the main character asks his girlfriend when she fails to spot Taylor's intentions. Apparently so. She's obviously never seen Dead Calm, Single White Female, Pacific Heights and a million other movies with the same premise.

To be fair the acting is acceptable but otherwise what on earth is Working Title doing wasting their time with this?

Never going

[raulfaust · 5/10 · 3 February 2014]

This movie started off by annoying me, given that I found the scene in which Taylor starts a conversation with Alex to be very implausible; who would just meet someone and carry his bags, without even asking? That being aside, as the movie goes, I began enjoying it. Scott asks too many questions to Alex about his trip, which makes the spectator feel the intriguing atmosphere filmmakers want to build. From the sex scene on, I began feeling agonized with such mysterious vibe the atmosphere has gotten into-- and that is very good in a suspenseful movie. However, several plot holes appeared in a matter of minutes, which spoiled almost every good point the story had. For instance, why on earth would Alex take the medicine-- probably coming from Taylor-- without asking what was that? He took the pills and THEN asked which are they! Not only that, but the couple sometimes acted TOO dumbly, even for this kind of movie. As another example, why didn't they JUST LEAVE while Taylor was sleeping? Instead of that, they always tell Taylor that "they're leaving in the next day", which allowed him to plan his tricks. It feels like they ALWAYS postponed the breakaway instead of just running away! In the end, filmmakers don't let spectator know why on earth Taylor did that to the couple, or even if he was a bad person anyways. All the movie's atmosphere was built on the unknown behavior of Taylor and the outcome doesn't deliver anything. All in all, "Gone" is the kind of film that you can only enjoy if you strongly turn off your brains and just believe everything that is being shown, otherwise, it will not pleasure you.

Cloe to masterpiece....I LOVED it!

[godssmartaleck · 10/10 · 13 April 2008]

This is the kind of film and director I would love to work in and with... A plus casting for the "villain" especially....and some of the best direction in this type of movie that I have ever seen.....The director used none of the "thriller" music and/or fancy editing cuts to make his point. Just brilliant character direction. I could not stop thinking about it. It's amazing that movies like this will hardly get noticed as it deserves, while "blockbusters" like "Legend" or the "Bank Job", or many other movies that are only popular because Hollywood hyped them to no end, will have an audience of millions. When are people gonna learn that the best movies are not made by the big studios, but by independent filmmakers who are pretty much the only ones who still make film for the story, and for their passion for the creative process...

Completely uninvolving

[Leofwine_draca · 3/10 · 15 October 2013]

GONE is a small-scale psychological thriller along the lines of DEAD CALM, KALIFORNIA and plenty more besides. In essence, it's a three-hander involving a group of young people on a road trip across the Australian outback, but it's no WOLF CREEK. In fact, it's no anything: this turns out to be completely uninvolving, purely because the script fails to get you empathising with the characters.

British scriptwriter James Watkins co-wrote this with an Aussie and it's a real stinker. Watkins also wrote MY LITTLE EYE and EDEN LAKE, both of which I enjoyed a great deal more than this, so maybe it's the Australian influence. The dialogue is lame, with almost the whole film consisting of people arguing, and the tension is non-existent. For a thriller this has zero thrills and zero suspense.

The actors try their hardest but they're saddled with unappealing characters. Shaun Evans plays a guy who is slightly obnoxious and full of himself, and he's the lead. Not a good start. Scott Mechlowicz is a little better as the stranger, but he's way too subdued and you can tell he's miscast in this type of role. Amelia Warner has a completely horrible and misjudged character and can do nothing with it.

GONE is lifeless and lacking in intrigue throughout, with lots of drawn-out and repetitive arguments going nowhere. Something DOES finally happen in the last five minutes but it's entirely predictable as is the rest of the movie. There was potential here, but it disappears very early on.

it's the worst movie I have ever seen.

[lawipac · 1/10 · 15 January 2012]

The story is too dry, and the whole story is not interesting at all.

I was almost asleep. and horror? not at all.

My life has been wasted 88 minutes. I can never claim the 88min back.

For young people that are 18 years old, they may actually learn something from the movie, especially when they deal with strangers.

For experienced adult, this movie is like a cartoon education for your kid, and nothing is quit logical.

the main characters are performing well, so as to make audience asleep. Taylor is picked up well, and he is 'handsome'.

the girl in the movie is so so, ordinary looking and not much attractive.

the end of the story is so lame.

A dud of a film, it's writer's mind gone off somewhere else

[PeterMitchell-506-564364 · 3/10 · 30 January 2013]

This obvious Wolf Creekish sort of film is definitely no Wolf Creek. It's mostly a flat drama, where it's last ten minutes actually intensifies, but this plot point should of been somewhere near the middle. An American guy, meets an English couple while backpacking, where slowly we begin to an unravel a darker side to their new found friend, who develops an obsession on the English girl. One incident at a party, he crosses paths with a girl he scr...d over, justifying himself to his friends that he doesn't know this girl. And with this new English girl, we know all too well, that "Three's Company" scenerio, especially when the odd man out, Taylor, is a nutter, and has nasty plans to annihilate his competition. Disappointing as this film was, and that's putting it mildly, Taylor was played with the right blend of psychotic calm and menace, by an unknown in a film that didn't return the compliment. To future scriptwriters out there who pen their first pic, watch and learn from this about poor story development or the lack of it.

Reasonable...

[RosanaBotafogo · 8/10 · 12 June 2022]

It's the kind of movie that takes the entire course of 80% to start happening something that was "premeditated" in the synopsis, hehehe, but I like all this psychological horror tension, which doesn't always have such a terrifying outcome as we imagined... Another one of the series "Marathoning dubious horror movies that are leaving Netflix", little distressing, extremely slow, only the final 20 minutes are worth it, reasonable...