Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

SteinMo What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Ed-Shullivan Warning: This movie should not be seen by anyone under the age of 16All parents and teenagers (16 years or older) should watch this movie in an effort to become more aware of your surroundings and to understand that evil predators exist amongst us. In real life, there remains thousands of parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, who have been left wondering what happened to their tiny angel(s) on that one tragic day that seemed to start out just like any other day, when the child was left unattended for just a few minutes only to go missing forever more. This is a tragedy and mystery that occurs every day across North America and we always think it won't happen to our own family.Stolen Lives is a movie that depicts a series of tragic events that occurred 50 years earlier when a good family man named Matthew Wakefield played by Josh Lucas, who is struggling to find work and keep his three young sons together as a family, makes a critical mistake and leaves one of his sons alone in the car for just a few minutes one evening. When Matthew returns to his car, his son is gone. Frantically he goes to the local sheriff for assistance but due to Matthew Wakefield's impropriety with a married woman on the evening his son went missing, and his son being mentally challenged, the sheriff is not very sympathetic nor interested in determining what happened to this young boy. It is a fact that back in the first half of the last century child abductions were not intelligently nor systematically investigated or documented to assess what we now know was the work and existence of serial killers. The movie smartly flips back and forth between the fifty year span of the two missing boys initial disappearances. Matthew Wakefield is seen searching for his lost son in the 1950's, and then the scene switches to the current period where detective Tom Adkins Sr is seen searching endlessly for clues into the disappearance of his young and innocent son. The movie provides us with comparisons between the two crimes. Mr. Wakefields lost son disappeared while he was left sleeping in their car, and then the director smartly takes us to current events and the scene flips to a period when an off duty detective named Tom Adkins Sr. played superbly by Jon Hamm takes his young son out to the local carnival for the afternoon and while sitting having some lunch in a trailer type diner he leaves his son alone for just 2 minutes so that he can use the diners rest room. When Detecive Adkins returns to his table his son has completely vanished with no clues, no witnesses, and most importantly, no son. The message I absorbed from these two tragic events is that child abductions have been occurring by serial killers who if not yet been arrested and that they will continue with their evil crimes if not caught. The outcome of these two tragic events that span 50 years is that families never recover and typically ones own guilt overpowers all other emotions as these crimes of opportunity could have been easily prevented. We as good parents have a certain level of trust and security in our own communities but unfortunately these two fathers were not attentive parents on just a single occasion. As a result of the fathers letting their guard down on just a single occasion they become victims and it causes a series of events that affect their own lives as well as the lives of their their extended families who also fall into despair, wondering and praying for their young angels to return home. Truth is however, that thousands of innocent children who are abducted are never found.We have recently learned of a few happy endings such as with the two unrelated discoveries of two missing children whose names are Jaycee Dugard and Shawn Hornbeck who were kidnapped and kept in captivity for years before they were eventually found and returned to their families, albeit many years later with their innocence tarnished forever. Stolen Lives is a movie I recommend to all families as long as their age is over 16. Whether you are married, single, have children, plan to have children in the future, or you are a babysitter minding your siblings, or minding a neighbor's children, please watch this movie. It will certainly hone your sense of responsibility and impress upon all of us how easily a brief lapse in judgement, or a misguided level of trust in humanity needs to be balanced with reality and a higher level of protection for our most blessed gift, our children. Serial killers exist more than we are prepared to comprehend and they prey on the weak and unassuming. This is a great movie with a great cast and the director laid out the movie and series of tragic events over 50 years superbly. Lets always keep our guard up and our children safe from these evil predators.

Rodrigo Amaro A detective (Jon Hamm) obsessed with the mysterious disappearance of his son goes deep into another obsession while investigating a similar case that took place in 1958 and despite the gap in between both cases they are connected. "Stolen Lives" divides itself in two segments (one in 1958, the other in 2008) on a same crusade which is to present two fathers trying to find their missing child and how they react to this happening in their shattered lives.There isn't much to be said about the film. It's pretty decent, with a quality cast that includes names like Hamm, Josh Lucas, Jessica Chastain, James Van Der Beek, Rhona Mitra, Jimmy Bennett and Joanna Cassidy, it doesn't disappoint. It portrays with justice the drama of parents who go or went through the same drama as the main characters here, the kind of agony no one wants to live with. Annoys me the fact of this being commercialized as a thriller when it's not that much. Sure, there's some suspense (very little, actually), the whole investigation and the search for the kids but it's more a dramatic work than a thriller (it doesn't work as such since it reveals things that should be left to the ending). The segments were presented in a good way, but one (Lucas) becomes more interesting than the other (Hamm), which created some strange unbalance that might ruin the film to some viewers. Admirable even without any news in its plot or presentation, it's worthy of a check out, at least for the cast. 7/10

MarieGabrielle Yes, I am biased, but he is definitely a sympathetic character in this film weaving a 1940's child killing to a current missing child case (grieving father well-portrayed by Jon Hamm/"Mad Men"). Hamm is also good here as he shows a different and more human side of his acting ability. In "Mad Men" he plays a slight sexist (apropos for that era, though).Lucas has three sons, Mark, Luke and John. The youngest child John is autistic (in the 1940's that was clearly a cardinal sin.). When Lucas' wife commits suicide and they are foreclosed on, he must hit the road to find any employment, and give his sons to in-laws to take care of them. His brother-in-law, Jonas is a nasty piece of work and refuses to take care of "the autistic one" John.Lucas finds construction work with a random group, one ("The Swede", played by Holt McCallany, and one portrayed by James Van Der Beek, nicknamed "diploma").The peripheral/current story of Hamm and his marital woes with Barbara are rather predictable, though we feel for him becoming obsessed with this 50 year old case of the murdered autistic child John.Without detailing the outcome, I will say there are some notable performances by Hamm and Lucas here, and the haunting story of missing and murdered children, and how society treats them.It is also a timely story, children in the U.S. are murdered and missing every day. Highly recommended. If you like this theme you may also like "The Dead Girl" an amazing film about a missing girl and how society treats disaffected people. 10/10.

homlizbiz At the end of the credits, I always read all the credits after every movie I watch because you learn things, was The Boy in The Box. I researched that and found out that there had been a murder of a small boy, 4 or 5, in rural PA back in 1957 who was found in a card board box by the side of a road. It has never been discovered who he was, and many detectives and others have tried solving the case over the years. He is known as America's unknown child. You can google the boy in the box to read more of this unsolved homicide. Tragic and sad. But after seeing the movie and reading about this case, it was closely related and interesting to see how the movie was loosely based on some of the facts of the real case. I thought the movie was well done.