Michael Shannon and John Ventimiglia on the side of a dusty road talking for five minutes about what breed of dog Serpico had in the film Serpico is my idea of cinema, baby! That’s one scene from the neo-noir comedy-drama, The Missing Person (2009), which stars Michael Shannon as an alcoholic private eye named John Rosow. Waking up one morning to a phone call, John receives a job from a lawyer named Drexler Hewitt (Paul Adelstein) to tail a guy another guy, Harold Fullmer (Frank Wood). Harold is boarding a train and Drexler needs eyes on him and constant photos. John is visited by Drexler’s assistant, Miss Charley (Amy Ryan who helped produce the movie) who hands over an envelope of money over and our detective eventually gets to work, giving Shannon the actor plenty of opportunity to grimace and scrunch up his face. Michael Shannon has a rep for being an intense actor but he also carries a weird funny streak, which makes him pitch perfect for this role. It’s Shannon’s own Altmanesque Long Goodbye where there’s no urgency or driving plot. It’s a hang-out movie, paying homage to the genre and particularly the low-key iterations (it made me think of the opening credits to Harper where we just watch Paul Newman wake up and make a coffee). That, and it being a low budget New York indie film (even though it also takes place in Chicago, LA and Mexico), it has a host of recognisable character actors for Shannon to bounce off (Yul Vazquez, Paul Sparks, Linda Edmond, Margaret Colin). This won’t be for everyone but it was completely in my wheelhouse and a hidden gem to me. The Missing Person uses the noir mystery tropes to deal with a post 9/11 melancholy; in form and in theme, the story also has the arty shaggy dog vibes of a Paul Auster thing. Director Noah Buschel (The Phenom) provides clear touches of visual style, shooting on film and adjusting the look over the course of the movie, building up to a beautiful shot of Shannon in close up listening to jazz in a hotel bar, red light cast across the side of his face. Available to stream for free on Tubi in Australia but also rentable/purchasable on iTunes. Recommended.
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