On September 11, 1973, military leaders in Chile staged a rebellion against the elected government of President Salvator Allende. Led by General Augusto Pinochet, the new rulers ordered the murder of top government officials and thousands of their supporters, made mass arrests throughout the country, and installed a dictatorship that remained in power until 1990. Contemporaries believed that the U.S. government, frustrated by Allende's socialist policies, had supported the coup, but the administration of President Richard M. Nixon denied responsibility. The coup re-captured headlines in the 1990s when the International Criminal Tribunal charged Chilean and U.S. leaders with violations of international law.

Director Constantin Costa-Gavras's movie, Missing, recounts these events from the perspective of U.S. citizens living in Chile. Based on Thomas Hauser's non-fiction book, The Execution of Charles Horman (1978), the film explores the disappearance of a young American, Charles Horman, a victim of the coup. Screenwriters Costa-Gavras and Donald Stewart won Oscars for their work.

The movie opens at a military checkpoint five days after the coup. U.S. Capt. Ray Tower (Charles Chioffi), military attachˇ at the U.S. embassy, drives two Americans, Charles Horton (John Shea) and Terry Simon (Melanie Mayron) from the seaside resort Viña del Mar, where the rebellion was planned, to Santiago, the capital city. They arrive just as sirens announce a curfew and must stay at a hotel. Through a window, Charles watches rich people at a party across the courtyard. When a military patrol passes by, the rich stop dancing to applaud the victorious rebels.

The next day, Terry accompanies Charles home, where they find his worried wife, Beth (Sissy Spacek). Later, Beth leaves Charles again to assist a friend. As they part, they see armed soldiers seize two women and cut their pants legs. "From now on," says a soldier, "women in this country wear dresses." Terry and Charles witness violence on the streets, and armed soldiers search her.

The U.S. embassy appears indifferent to the danger. Although Charles exclaims, "They can't hurt us. We're Americans," they are defenseless against military violence. Unable to find transportation home, Beth spends a harrowing night hiding on the streets and avoiding military patrols, gunfire, and dead bodies. When Beth finally gets home, the apartment is in shambles and her husband is missing. A neighbor reports that soldiers have arrested Charles.

The movie cuts to Washington, D.C., where Charles's father, Ed Horman (played by Jack Lemmon), tries to interest the U.S. government in his son's disappearance. State Department officials, whose office walls have photographs of President Nixon, offer bland assurances--"let us handle it"--and suggest that Charles is not a prisoner, but is hiding for political reasons.

Frustrated by the bureaucrats, Ed Horman flies to Chile, where he meets his daughter-in-law, Beth. Their relationship is chilly. When Beth expresses distrust of U.S. officials, Ed snaps: "I don't want to hear any of your anti-establishment paranoia." Confident that his connections with respectable leaders will help him locate his son, Ed thinks Charles and Beth have brought their troubles on themselves. He maintains this position when they meet U.S. embassy officials, including the Ambassador and Capt. Tower.

The movie then flashes back to Charles' visit to Viña del Mar. On the day of the coup, he and Terry are at the beach, planning to return to Santiago, but learn that striking truckers blocked the roads to the capital. Stuck at a hotel that night, they are awakened by a hovering helicopter that is assisting military movement.

Staying in the flashback, the movie shows Charles and Terry at breakfast the next morning, September 12, meeting by chance a U.S. military person named Andrew Babcock (Richard Bradford) who is on "special assignment." As Charles asks questions, Babcock blurts out details of his mission. Charles, who works for a small newspaper, takes notes. When the flashback ends, Beth tells Ed that this information shows that the U.S. military at Viña was involved in the coup.

Ed and Beth continue to investigate Charles's disappearance with neighbors who describe his arrest. One woman says that she saw soldiers take him into the National Stadium, which was used by the military as a detention center and killing ground.

Ed and Beth bring this information to the embassy. But officials suggest that radicals posing as soldiers seized Charles, with his consent, for the purpose of embarrassing the military junta. Frustrated by such contradictory views, Ed begs the embassy to do whatever it can to recover his son. He also scolds his skeptical daughter-in-law for lacking patriotism.

Continuing to interview Charles's friends, Ed and Beth visit David Holloway who, along with another American, Frank Teruggi, was taken to the Stadium. In flashback, he tells how soldiers beat, tortured, and killed prisoners. After another fruitless visit to the embassy, where the ambassador explicitly denies U.S. involvement in military assistance programs, they visit hospitals and morgues looking for Charles. They even go to the Stadium, housing thousands of prisoners, but do not find him.

Visiting a foreign embassy crowded with Chileans seeking refuge, they interview a former policeman who claims to have seen Charles in military custody. "He knew too much," explains the man, who says that Charles was returned to the Stadium.

Curious about what Charles did know, Ed and Beth read through the detailed notes about his encounters with military personnel in Viña. As it appears that Charles stumbled onto U.S. involvement in the coup, the movie's sound track plays, "My whole world is falling down." The presence of U.S. military officers in Viña, where the coup began, belies government denials of any knowledge in the rebellion.

Another visit to a morgue leads Beth to the body of Frank Teruggi. To Ed, who was told earlier that Teruggi had been released from the Stadium, the discovery undermines the credibility of U.S. officials. He apologizes to Beth for rebuffing her skepticism. Following another tip, Ed visits an informant at the Ford Foundation, who offers additional information. According to an anonymous source, Ed learns that soldiers executed Charles Horman at the Stadium on September 19, just three days after his arrest.

When he rushes to inform the Embassy, however, Ed finds an unsympathetic response. The Ambassador lectures him on the need to protect U.S. interests. "There are over 3,000 U.S. firms doing business down here and those are American interests," he says. "I'm concerned with the preservation of a way of life." Capt. Tower suggests that Charles snooped around too much: "You play with fire you get burned."

Such admissions infuriate Horton. After arranging for the return of Charles's body, he announces that he will sue the government. "Thank God we still live in a country where we can put people like you in jail."

The film's epilogue explains that Ed Horton sued eleven U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for "complicity and negligence" in Charles's death. The suit failed because the necessary documents were not available, having been classified as "secrets of state."

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