Searching Reviews
March 20, 2020
Shot mostly with iPhones and GoPro cameras, the movie is visually drab and a little too gimmicky - ultimately it's a stunt, albeit an engrossing one.
September 21, 2018
Searching follows Eighth Grade as another thought-provoking film about the intersection between teens' lives and their presence-and reliance-on social media.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/5
September 14, 2018
It's done with few words but it's unexpectedly touching, fulfilling the film's key promise - that it's going to make you care about these people, despite the secondhand nature of its delivery system.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
September 13, 2018
It helps when you have a lead like John Cho, who after 20 years in the industry is finally bagging the kind of starring roles he deserves.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
September 7, 2018
An extremely tasty thriller that delivers exactly the right amount of suspense and twisty surprises.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
September 7, 2018
I was floored by the craft on display.
Full Review
| Original Score: A
September 4, 2018
The film doesn't understand what mode it wants to operate in; serious thriller with emotional stakes or contrived, cynical satire.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
September 1, 2018
Searching is a taut, effectively paced mystery-thriller with a powerful emotional component.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
August 31, 2018
As a drama about a father and a daughter relationship, Searching is nuanced and affecting.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
August 31, 2018
Some nice moves but as shallow as YouTube celebrity.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
August 31, 2018
For most of its running time, Searching refreshes our screens. Smiley face.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
August 31, 2018
Cho, Messing, and La are excellent actors who are offered almost nothing to work with.
August 31, 2018
The suspense is satisfactory; the pace is well-sustained. What really clicks, though, is the message: We leave digital bread crumbs everywhere we go, and if our secrets are not safe, neither are we.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
August 31, 2018
That a thriller would come along utilizing these ideas was inevitable. What's unexpected is that it would be done so well.
Full Review
| Original Score: B+
August 30, 2018
The distancing effect of technology turns the mawkish into something more meaningful and provides an impassive foil for David's meltdown.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
August 30, 2018
A well-crafted mystery with quite a few unexpected twists and turns.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
August 30, 2018
What holds Searching together is its star. Always an enjoyable comedian, Cho has grown into a reliably good actor and aged nicely, providing a sad-eyed soulfulness.
August 30, 2018
Wasting a decent performance from John Cho as the desperate father of a missing teen, this film never commits to a cogent reason why it had to be told in such a way.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/5
August 30, 2018
Searching may strike older viewers as a novel experimental film, but more importantly it's a genuine white-knuckling exploration of our relationship with disruptive technology and how that impacts one average American family's daily life.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/5
August 30, 2018
"Searching," a pleasantly gimmicky movie, gets its power from something that isn't a gimmick at all: an actor's ability to simply and movingly tell a story.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4