Vanishing on 7th Street (2010)

How many times have you seen a movie that sounds so perfect on paper, yet suffers in delivery? Something went wrong in the filming of Vanishing On 7th Street, but exactly what and why is as much a mystery as the movie itself.

On a busy night in the city, everyone is going about their business, but as power fades everyone disappears leaving just a pile of clothes where they once stood. Not everyone suffers this fate, those who were in a lightened area, at the time the power went out has survived. But the survivors are few and far between, and something in the shadows wants/needs them. In a battle for survival, some look for escape, while others look for the truth.

The movie starts off promising, although that being said the opening credits do not. Poor opening credits are always a good indication of where the story is going to go. While the effect, as you later discover has purpose, the film quality has that 80’s TV movie haze about it, a haze that follows the rest of the movie. It’s quite hard to get your head round the fact that this is a movie directed by Brad Anderson, the man behind the beautiful Transiberian, and the thought provoking The Machinist.

The story is fine, a good idea although not a particularly new one. It’s very much a “STAY IN THE LIGHT” movie, the message coming through loud and clear just 8 or 9 minutes in. Sadly when creating a treatment for a movie, you start with an idea, then pad it out, most notably with human emotion, and this is where the movie falls down. The biggest issue is that the aforementioned human emotion is completely lacking depth and feeling. The group of characters the movie centres around, do not offer anything to the audience, you get no impression that at their hearts they are really good people. Then we have the working with kids pitfall, and the high emphasis on the fact that no matter what your plan may be the kid will always screw it up, why do movie writers allow this to happen, when the shit hits the fan kids are more resilient than authors like us to think, and when it goes wrong kids do exactly what they are told to, not here however (or many similar movies), the kid runs off endangering lives, or is just annoying. Then the final thing, when a hero (or leading character) dies, it’s done in a very matter of fact way, and completely devoid of emotion. The loss of one of the characters is almost a throwaway aspect, chucked in at the last minute.

Once you have got to grips with the fact that this is a movie by Brad Anderson, you then have the casting quandary Thandie Newton, John Leguizamo, and Hayden Christensen; how could this movie have gone so badly wrong?

Vanishing On 7th Street, with a bit of tweaking, some actual due care and attention, and a nicer film quality could be an incredible movie. It borrows heavily from the likes of The Omega Man, and uses tried and tested formulas to try and blow its audience away, sadly however it’s all been done before and something really was missing. Just one unique factor could have span this movie around, and I’ve not even mentioned the fact that everything that happens is pretty much unexplained.