Movie review: John Cho looks for his missing daughter in smart 'Searching'
<h3 class="briefHead">"Searching" - ★ ★ ★ </h3>
I predict that theaters being used as giant computer screens with rapid-fire "dialogue" boxes that spit out perfectly spelled words will become as cliché as the "found footage" format has become since "The Blair Witch Project" resurrected it in 1999.
But not yet.
First-time feature director (and former Google employee) Aneesh Chaganty's "Searching" lifts the emerging genre to its next level with a mesmerizing missing teen mystery involving a smart dad who uses his daughter's Mac in a desperate bid to find her.
John Cho (Mr. Sulu in the "Star Trek" reboots, and half the "Harold and Kumar" comedies) plays David, a doting dad to 16-year-old Margot (Michelle La).
We know he's devoted because the "Up"-inspired opening whisks us through an emotional roller coaster of digital family photos and videos detailing how happy David's family had been before his wife died of cancer.
Having set up this idyllic, tested father/daughter relationship, the twisty screenplay - written by Chaganty and Sev Ohanian - slowly peels back the multi-layers of a pungent narrative onion.
One night, a sleeping David misses two phone calls and a Face Time request from Margot. (When teens want to Face Time with Dad, you know they really need to talk.)
The next day, David tries to contact Margot. He doesn't worry. She could be at a friend's house. Or at her Friday piano lessons.
Except when he calls the piano instructor, she tells David that Margot dropped lessons six months ago. She apparently pocketed the $100 payments to the instructor.
From this point, "Searching" takes off like a Roman candle as David discovers Margot's school "friends" don't really know her well.
Then comes the chiller realization: He doesn't, either.
David finally calls the cops, and Detective Rosemary Vick (Debra Messing) shows up, skipping over the expected "gotta wait 24 hours" speech to start the search instantly, almost ferociously compared to most movie cops.
Pay careful attention to the details in this mystery, especially the online news stories that blow past your eyes early on. Chaganty doesn't waste time with frivolous information. (Even the high school's mascot name on a sign in the background contains a clue.)
Chaganty tells most of "Searching" through a single computer screen, like the horror films "Unfriended" and "Unfriended: Dark Web." (Filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov produced all three.)
Where the scary tales stayed pure to this single-screen concept, "Searching" incorporates cellphone video and security camera footage that, frankly, diminish this experience, especially when fixed cameras inexplicably develop the cinematic ability to move and cut to extreme close-ups.
Chaganty's thriller may not be timeless, but it is certainly timely. It has plenty to criticize about the "light web" by exposing hypocritical high school students who suddenly become Margot's best friends when the news media arrive.
Neither does the web's vox populi escape criticism, as "Searching" depicts how savagely mean, unjust and ill-informed people can be with quick-draw opinions and rushed assumptions.
"Searching" marks a cinematic milestone by making Cho the first Asian-American lead in a major studio-released thriller. (It follows the popular all-Asian cast "Crazy Rich Asians," a romantic comedy depicting smartphone chats with inventive visuals.)
Who knows? Maybe these movies might inspire a resurgence of interest in speed-reading.
<b>Starring:</b> John Cho, Debra Messing, Michelle La
<b>Directed by:</b> Aneesh Chaganty
<b>Other:</b> A Screen Gems release. Rated PG-13 for drug and sexual references, language. 102 minutes