The Missing Person (2009)

He's a detective with a simple job: tail a man and a young boy across the country. But things are rarely as simple as they seem. Directed by Noah Buschel.

This neo-noir stars Michael Shannon as a private investigator working out of Chicago. He's an old-style private eye, seemingly thrust into a modern world - the movie opens with him being woken in bed by a phone ringing, but when he finally rolls over to pick up his landline, it becomes apparent that it's actually his cell phone buzzing on the opposite side of the room.

Like any good private eye, he drinks too much, smokes too much (even more of a problem because no one in 2009 wants him to smoke around them), and has a past he's attempting to escape from. A character in the movie even remarks that they were surprised private eyes even existed any more, and wondered if he was trying to make jokes like Humphrey Bogart.

The mystery, as with any good mystery, is mostly a MacGuffin. The real story lies in the characters themselves, and how the pursuit of the mystery changes them. The mystery may be taking place in the present, but the characters are all dealing with the past, trying to work out their own feelings to it (specifically, to 9/11). It's a movie that drops plenty of hints about where it's going, but it all ties up in the end, and never feels unbelievable about how it does it.