It is a performances centric movie

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

So the wife leaves her husband because he put her through law school and bought a boat to start a business in the Caribbean. Real hard life. She never makes use of her education, wants a divorce, uses lawyers to take everything, including the kid. All he wants to do is make it work for them. Loves her, loves his family. He wasn't a cheater or a womanizer or an alcoholic or anything like that. He just wants to build a better life for his child. She will have none of it.So the father fakes his and his son's death. He goes on to raise a young man who can speak 4 languages, has seen a lot of the world, is cultured, educated, well mannered, healthy, and wealthy. Not to mention he lives in paradise.Meanwhile, she remarries and has 2 very problematic children. Stepson is going to court, stepdaughter is about to get kicked out of her first week in college. Obviously she's a real champ of a parent.She finds out her son is alive, throws new family in trash can on her way out of the country illegally, and races to find him. She acts like he's a dog or some other pet, although he's already 18 "she wants him". She ruins her x hubby's life by getting the law after him and threatening him with life in prison, although he is genuine and did everything to make the marriage work, as you'll see. It's guaranteed that her son's life will be degraded by moving to Los Angeles, the butthole of the world. Her stepchildren and her new husband have some major adjustments to overcome as well.Dad ends up starving to death on a deserted island... She gets custody of the ... "man" and lives happily ever after.I have so many issues with this I don't even know where to begin. First, anybody who's been at sea since they were 4yo is not going to settle down in L.A. for more than a week. Secondly, the son wouldn't have left the only parent he ever knew for some stranger. Nor would he leave the only life he knew. Even if he did, he would swim back from L.A. after a very short time. Guaranteed.I wont even get in to the ethical implications. Suffice to say that this movie serves as proof of how sick and backwards the inner workings of some feminine minds can be.The immoral of the story... kill the good husband, mind control the good son. Be selfish because you're a woman and everyone else exists to entertain you.This movie is trash & promotes trashy values, brought to you by Lifetime, a trashy network. At best, Lifetime shows you exactly what NOT to do.

Gabrielle Anwar is luminous. It was not at all surprising that she had men all over the place either sweet-talking her or bending the rules for her. The young man who played Mark/Matthew made me wish I was about 25 years younger than I am! (grin)But still... come on. I'll grant you that it would not be easy to wait a few weeks to get a passport before going to see your son, but the travel agent told her she would probably be detained and possibly deported back the U.S., in which case she would be right back where she started. And if she's so good at getting people to bend the rules for her, why didn't she contact whoever about getting the passport, explain her story, and try to get the process expedited? This was a plot device tossed in to the story to keep it from being about half an hour long, and the writer surely could have found *something* more believable!And what is Kristine's problem with telling the truth? Why didn't she tell her story to the official at the immigration office once she arrived on the island without a passport? Why lie to him about losing her passport? And for that matter, why did he believe her? I don't know about anyone else, but I don't usually travel with a copy of my birth certificate in my purse. If she lost her passport on the plane, why would she have her birth certificate right there with her, and why didn't the immigration official question her about it? Same thing with the local police officer -- same lie and same problematic paperwork.Speaking of the police officer, what's up with him telling Kristine "names and numbers -- I'm on it" as if he plans to investigate Quinn, then turning around and calling Quinn to joke with him about "this crazy American?" Another silly plot device to keep Kristine from going straight to Matthew to tell him, I suppose, since he told her it would impede his "investigation."Finally at the end of the movie, as the three main characters sit in boats anchored at a salt flat with a hurricane approaching, Quinn (and the screenwriter) can't seem to figure out what he should do. One minute he's saying they can't go back to the island because "they're looking for me." He intends to make a run for it, and take Kristine and Matthew with him. A moment later, he has apparently remembered there's a hurricane on the way and calls the rescue helicopter, giving them his location, so he, Kristine, and Matthew can be picked up -- says he wants to do his time on this island rather than rotting in jail in Haiti, and he doesn't want Matthew or Kristine to get hurt. (This from the man who told his son his mother was dead, and let the mother believe her son was dead. But he doesn't want them to get hurt.) Another moment later, Kristine suggests he take the zodiac and get away, and he agrees, thereby making her (and presumably Matthew) an accessory to his escape from the law. (But he doesn't want them to get hurt.)It's not a terrible movie, but it's also not one I would watch again.

Gabrielle Anwar is Karen, a woman who believes her son and husband to be dead for the past 14 years - until she sees a young man and her husband in a vacation video. "The Long Lost Son" is about a woman who will not be stopped from going to the resort location and tracking down her child.This film was a real tour de force for Anwar, who gives a beautiful performance as the mother. The scene where she hears on the answering machine that the search at sea for her husband and child will have to be abandoned is amazing. So upset that she is unable to walk, she doubles over and leans on furniture to get across the room, where she completely collapses. All of her physical mannerisms and emotions rang true throughout.In order to give the character more obstacles, however, the writer added a plot hole - Karen buys her ticket for this island, but she has no passport. The travel agent suggests that she bring her birth certificate and driver's license. Uh, this is 2006. She brings a birth certificate that's not even an official copy. Anyone who has ever traveled to a foreign country knows that if you have a ticket, you can be issued a passport immediately. Naturally she runs into trouble when she arrives and her story about her husband is not believed as he is well-liked on the island and a friend of the police chief's.I had one other problem with this film, and that is, with Karen's son missing for 14 years, how could she have recognized him so readily? In real life, when the police thought they had found Eton Patz some years after he was kidnapped, the parents broke down when the saw the recent photo because they weren't sure that was their son. And look at Princess Anastasia. It's obviously not so easy. In this case, I bought it because I went with the mystical connection between mother and child - but really, if she had seen her husband on the video first, being suspicious about the young man would have made more sense.What makes this film above average is Anwar's performance and seeing a new actor, Chace Crawford, who plays Matthew/Mark, the son. He brought a naturalness and warmth to his role - and it doesn't hurt that he's a major hunk. You'll be seeing a lot of him.

I saw this movie because of the previews. Chase Crawford is one hot, clean, decent guy. I am glad I watched it because his dad was an old familiar face to me. I thought the woman playing the mother got in many ways what she deserved until the very end. I don't mean a mother should lose a child for any reason but her attitude really needed some work. I do not understand why there is no information on this movie as yet but at least it now shows up when I request the title. I think that over the next few years the name Chace Crawford will appear more and more. At least I hope so. He brought that special something that made me root for the entire family. Dad got what he deserved in the end too. A place to sit and reflect. ha ha. Such dedication from a mother is something I would like to see more of today on TV. Maybe the networks will soon drop those stupid reality shows and go back to things like LONG LOST SON. Anyway I highly recommend this movie. It is just one notch above a movie of the week and will bring out feelings you may have not felt in a long while with the stuff being put on TV today.