Last Seen Alive  ★★½

GERARD Butler’s latest effort lacks originality and tension.

The script for Last Seen Alive, by Marc Frydman, borrows the basic set-up from several better films and adds little to differentiate it.

Butler plays Will Spann whose marriage to Lisa (Jaimie Alexander) is on the rocks.

While taking her to spend some reflective time away at her parents’ family home they stop at a petrol station where Lisa disappears.

Will searches frantically but doesn’t get much help from the local police until he gives them surveillance camera footage which Lisa being approached outside the station by a man from her past.

Even then, of course, Will ends up having to take the law into his own hands, as is usually the case in a Butler-driven film.

Director Brian Goodman does a serviceable job behind the scenes, but Marc Frydman’s script offers nothing new apart from a strong, well-acted scene between Will and a detective in an interview room.

Not much of a recommendation for a thriller I know.

Still, if you’re a Butler fan or completist, like I am, you’ll have a look in case you get another surprise like the recent Greenland.