But their individual roles and eventually dangerous interpersonal dynamic feel underwritten. It’s hardly the actors’ fault: The reliable Mullan is well-cast, fellow native Scot Butler effectively breaks out of his recent popcorn-action rut with an earthier turn, and newcomer Swindells shows potential in a limited part. More disappointingly still, the depth of character conflict that would effectively shift the film’s core from pulp suspense to tragedy never quite arrives. But despite some fairly bloody scenes, there’s not much excitement or urgency communicated as events escalate. The stark, craggily exposed beauty of the locations conjures a mood of primal peril in Jorgen Johansson’s widescreen cinematography, and other tech/design contributions are atmospheric. “The Vanishing” holds strong promise in its early going, when we’ve no idea what will happen (beyond that three men will “disappear” into thin air). Nor does Danish director Kristoffer Nyholm, making his theatrical feature debut after numerous well-received TV cliffhangers (“Taboo,” The Enfield Haunting,” “The Killing”), rachet up the tension as needed. But scenarists Celyn Jones and Joe Bone seem uncertain whether to create a crime melodrama or a psychological thriller, ending up with something that is not quite either. Its decision to pursue a “Simple Plan”-type narrative - in which escalating greed and paranoia among those who find pilfered loot proves deadlier than any threat from its prior owners - might’ve worked with a sufficiently clever, surprising screenplay. The actual historic mystery’s near-blank slate means “The Vanishing” could have gone in any explanatory direction. Unfortunately, that stolen treasure also brings two more men (Soren Malling, Olafur Darri Olafsson), who soon turn up looking for their “missing crewmate.” They do not buy the lighthousemen’s hastily contrived cover story, provoking further confrontation. The reason for his violence is revealed when they open the locked chest he’d hauled: It contains two solid-gold bars. The man turns out to be not-so-dead after all, though after a tussle he duly is so. Then after a storm, Donald makes a discovery: An apparently dead man and his rowboat, beached in a crevasse. They settle in for an isolated long haul, one that promises to be harmonious enough despite Thomas’ occasional nocturnal roaming under the influence of whiskey and grief. They’re comprised of old hand Thomas (Mullan), a taciturn type made more so since his wife’s recent death big, amiable James (Butler), temporarily leaving his wife and children behind on the mainland and Donald (newcomer Connor Swindells), a greenhorn youth who’s high-spirited but also inclined to sulk, having been kicked around as an orphan. We meet the protagonists on the day they gather to be ferried over to the isle in question - one of the Flannans, aka Seven Hunters, a group of small islands with no permanent residents today - in order to assume coming months’ lighthouse-keeping duties from the prior crew.
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