An exciting thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat! _Searching_ makes a big gamble: A big part of the movie is spent looking into a computer screen. The result however is astonishing! Do not miss it.

Wow. Never has a movie kept me at the edge of my seat and guessing the whole time. Just wow, the story-telling-through-a-computer concept just makes it a hundred times better. An absolute must for everyone, specially thriller/mystery fans.

Like most PG-13 offerings, _Searching_ is just emmental: full of holes, cheesy and too much will make you queasy. And it's not really gouda. The movie's not a total waste, however. The found footage aspect (the film is entirely presented through screen activity on mobile phones, laptops, desktops...) is well done and the actors often hit their marks. The film's major drawbacks, however, are the ending, which we know as soon as we see the film's MPAA rating (no matter how clever they think they are at trying to convince us otherwise) and the WTFs, [spoiler] like the police don't check a missing teen's text messages and no one has ever heard of catfishing [/spoiler]. Hey, if the film isn't going to give me any credit, I'm certainly not above doing the same.

I was not expecting this to be as intense as it was. Like, it was _Taken_-level intense, and the main character never really gets more involved in the search than browsing his daughter's search history. If you were to strip away the "all told through a computer screen" aspect, it would just be a mediocre _Taken_ rip-off with no action. Instead, the viewer is forced to see only what our main character sees (minus the news broadcasts), leaving a lot more room for the audience to piece together clues from anything and everything shown on a screen (and there are a LOT of seemingly innocuous hints sprinkled masterfully throughout). The storytelling is smart and so well done, especially the last fifteen minutes. Telling the story through various screens is more than just a gimmick; it elevates the story and connects us closer to this struggling dad (who almost doesn't feel like a character thanks to John Cho's great acting). The sense of dread hanging over the movie feels real, and I almost forgot I was watching a movie at some points. If you like thrillers, even just a little bit, don't let this one fall to the bottom of your watchlist. Go see it.