Missing Allen

Running time: N/A

Northern California Premiere Missing Allen is a detective story that leads the viewer into the American Heart of Darkness of Waco, Texas; Oklahoma City; UFO-believers; and religious cults. November 1995-filmmaker Allen Ross disappears without a trace. Five years later, his friend and sometimes cameraman, Christian Bauer, decides to make a movie about him. Unwittingly, what begins as homage to a missing friend becomes a riveting mystery rivaling any detective story. Leaving the security of anonymity behind the camera, Bauer becomes director and detective. The enormity of Allen's disappearance weighs heavily on everyone who knew him, especially his ailing father who holds onto Allen's last letters and credit card statements like a talisman. Moving quickly from the surprising to the bizarre-including Allen's strange marriage to a woman he barely knows and the religious cult with ties to the Waco Branch Davidians-we get to know Allen as the man Bauer knew, but before long, as the man Bauer never knew. In the end, life proves to be much stranger than fiction. Bauer's filmic investigation actually unearths the answer to the unsolved mystery. The astonishing and frightful truth could not be found in any fictional crime story. Part detective story, part documentary, and part love letter, Missing Allen is truly in a genre of its own. Reviewed by Meredith H. Sherter. Preceded by: Family Values (Eva Saks, 23 min., USA) Meet an American family with traditional family values—but this is definitely not the Donna Reed Show.