Erased [2016]

Erased [2016]
Original Title: Bokudake ga inai machi
Japan
Director: Yuichiro Hirakawa
My Rating: 8/10

I almost skipped this movie entirely because of it's generic name (the original Japanese title is much better) and it's crappy poster.  The poster makes it look like a low budget movie from the early 90's.  Don't let that fool you, it's actually quite good.  It was on it's way to being a perfect 10 of a movie until the final half hour.  Something happens that makes no sense and left me thinking that surely this will be explained or resolved somehow... nope.  The conclusion, although more realistic than what I expected to happen, felt very unsatisfying.

As for the story, it's a time travel mystery/drama with the time travel mechanism being strange and never explained.  It's still a compelling story, and the child actors are quite good.  There is real tension and danger for the children, and due to their age their task of not only survival but of solving a murder is especially challenging.  The mystery of the killer's identity is not particularly mysterious (there is a limited amount of characters), but getting proof and stopping them certainly is.

Overall I really liked this film.  The 1988 setting is done well and makes me nostalgic for the time.  It's nice to see a story about children who are not annoying, but instead portrayed in a realistic manner.  There is an element of tragedy looming over the story but it avoids descending into melodrama.  The future becomes altered but it also avoids going into crazy butterfly effect dramatic changes, which can be fun but don't always make sense.  It's well written and mostly well thought out, a pretty solid time travel story.

At the time of writing this there is only one seller for it on Amazon, and they're asking 50 dollars for the blu-ray.  They should be beaten with a rubber hose for that asking price.  I'm leaving the link here in hopes that more options become available later, because it is a pretty recent movie.