Vanished Into The Night (Renato De Maria, Netflix, 2024)
Vanished Into The Night (original title: Svaniti Nella Notte) is a tense psychological thriller, starring Riccardo Scamarcio and Annabelle Wallis.
This remake of the Spanish-Argentinian movie Septimo (2013) is about an Italian father, Pietro (Scamarcio), who is immersed in a difficult divorce process from his American wife Elena (Wallis), who plans to fly back from Bari to the States pretty soon.
However, Pietro’s life gets even more complicated when their two children disappear from his isolated country house. When he gets a demand for ransom money, he does the only thing he can and goes on a dangerous mission to save them.
This involves a boat trip to one the Greek islands, where he has to await for further instructions. All the while you have the idea that Pietro is being set-up, but why and by whom?
It’s an intriguing psychological thriller (half Italian, half English spoken), and then in the last half hour it goes full Hitchcock and becomes an unnerving paranoia thriller, and one of the better twisty and turny movies I’ve seen this year.
The movie is directed by the talented and prolific Renato De Maria, who previously directed the Mafia movie The Ruthless (2019) and the action thriller Robbing Mussolini (2022) for Netflix.
De Maria is working from a script by Luca Infascelli and Francesca Marciano, who based their work on the original movie by writer Alejo Flah and writer-Director Patxi Amezcua (who also wrote the Netflix movies Infiesto and A Man of Action).
I haven’t seen the original movie, Septimo, but I can see why it got a remake as it’s the kind of high concept movie that can work in any language.
The movie also benefits from a convincing star turn by Riccardo Scamarcio, who also played the lead in The Ruthless (Lo Spietato) and has become one of Italy’s most recognizable actors. He is known to international audiences through his roles in A Haunting in Venice and the John Wick movies.
Now in his mid-forties Riccardo Scamarcio has matured into an appealing leading man, who has got to go all the way here.
Towards the end of the film he looks he perfectly ragged, as his character gets hardly any sleep throughout the movie, while engaging in more and more dangerous stuff (even though the film doesn’t contain all that much actual violence).
Annabelle Wallis is also strong in the second lead role, the British actress is known for her roles in horror movies like Annabelle and Malignant, while she also starred with Tom Cruise in the ill-fated remake of The Mummy.
Both actors deliver outstanding work, while the movie bathes in bright, warm colours, making the most of its Mediterranean locations, with other tech credits also making a highly professional impression that make it stand out from the usual (Netflix) crowd.
Coming in at a tight 92-minutes, Vanished Into The Night is a satisfying genre movie that not only looks like a real movie but has all the ingredients needed to become an audience pleaser.