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The Missing (Widescreen Edition)

The Missing (Widescreen Edition)

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Cate Blanchett at her best
Review: For a Cowboy/Indian type movie this was great. You have a mother (Kate) estranged from her father (gone-Indian-Tommy Lee Jones) bonding together to find the evil Indian (kidnapper of young girls to sell on the Mexican market) in search of the oldest daughter now a kidnap victim herself. Lots of action, very good acting and a great female presence of Evan Rachel Wood Jenna Boyd, playing the daughters of Cate Blanchet and Granddaughters of Tommy Lee Jones.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: It's good but a bit too long.
Review: Tommy Lee Jones and Cate Blanchett are great as a father and daughter who have to work together in order to find Blanchett's missing daughter. There are a lot of spirituality and legend involved in this tale, and Ron Howard treats them with the up most respect, but the movie is a bit too long, and the climax is a little too cliché for it's own good. But Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones keep this movie from derailing with their great performances.

Worth a look.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: extremely intense compelling film making by ron howard
Review: what a genuine surprise i got this evening upon receiving my dvd great story, great look at new mexico circa 1885, masterful and gripping performances by cate blanchett and tommy lee jones, as usual. wonderful film about as intense as your gonna get however, not for the squemish-for everyone else a must see.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: SEE THE STORY BEYOND THE WESTERN
Review: THE MISSING poses a real dilemma to the average western movie fan. Unlike shoot-em-up extravaganzas like TOMBSTONE and ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST and antihero classics like THE WILD BUNCH and UNFORGIVEN, this movie is about a variety of more subtle thoughtful themes. It's about family ties and the fact that they can be sustained and resurrected even after years of separation. It's speaks much about the harshness of the American West, how fleeting life truly was and just how callused and tough you had to be to survive.

Some have criticized this movie as having no plot or story and that the powerful acting of a marvelous cast and the superb talents of a directing genius are all that carries it. Rubbish! As already stated this is not your typical western. Look to the story that just happens to be set in the west and past it and you will find a compelling drama that will have you coming back again and again.

Tommy Lee Jones stars as Samuel Jones, an estranged father who abandoned his white family to "follow the hawk" as he explains to his embittered daughter Magdalena Gilkeson (Cate Blanchett). When Maggie's oldest daughter, Lilly (Evan Rachel Wood) is stolen by a maniacal Apache "brujo" or witch (Eric Schweig), a man of consummate hatred and evil, Maggie discovers that, despite here hatred for her father, he is the only one upon whom she can count to retrieve her daughter. Not local law. Not the army. Only the father whom she cannot trust.

THE MISSING is a wonderful movie, beautifully staged and shot. Tommy Lee Jones and Cate Blanchett are splendid. Eric Schweig is diabolical as one of the most heinous characters you will ever see in a movie. Jenna Boyd stars as the spirited Dot, Maggie's youngest daughter. Terrific performances by Evan Rachel Wood, Val Kilmer and Steve Reevis.

THE HORSEMAN

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not a bad one.
Review: A fictional period story of young widow and single mother Maggie Gilkeson (Cate Blanchett) raising her two daughters in the desolate, rural 19th century Mexican border landscape among the Indian renegades and open wilderness. There she needs her present man (Aaron Eckhart) and must rely on her errant father (Tommy Lee Jones) to survive when her domestic life takes on a sudden fateful turn.

There has been some mixed reviews here but I do observe a few points of view regardless of the votes. The historical justice has to be counted in if you ever find yourself gut-wrenching over those brutal kidnapping or slaughtering scenes, as T. Tzanopoulos already said it loud and clear. Equally, the empathizing concern needs to be brought to light for native American origins and strong single parents like Janet Passow.

Thus, this film does exist for good. THREE and A HALF brilliant stars.

(As for me, the only reason to catch this DVD is Cate Blanchett. An acting genius from Asia Pacific but obviously for not having won the 1998 Academy Best Actress, she's probably proving herself harder and harder by this Western flick and VERONICA GUERIN?)

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: what a waste!
Review: with such top-notched casts, still, the film itself seemed to fall apart after the daughter was missing. the script simply failed to come up with any interesting twist, only held together by the wonderful cate blanchet. i have become so impatient to sit tight after one third of the movie and just wanted it to come to an end soon enough. stupid screenply killed a good director, two adult stars and two wonderful young actors. this is a wonderfully done picture with fantastic scenaries but totally failed due to a empty and hollow script. what a waste....

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Different from what I had expected!
Review: Although this movie was not what I had expected at all, It was still a very suspenseful, and somewhat graphic movie. I am never disappointed by a Ron Howard film, however, I didn't give this a 5 star rating only because I was shocked and saddened by the ending. I understand why it was done that way, however, I do like a more "upbeat" ending, after having to go through all of the violence and gore. The acting was excellent, and the little girl in the movie is fantastic! I hope to see her in future movies.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: FANTASTIC WESTERN
Review: RON HOWARD'S BETTER FILM TO DATE. GREAT ACTING BY THE ENTIRE CAST. THE SCRIPT WAS VERY INSIGHTFUL. REGARDING OTHER COMMENTS I HAVE SEEN ON THIS FILM, THE MOVIE IS ONLY SHOWING A SMALL, VERY SMALL KIND OF AMERICAN INDIANS., IT IS NOT MEANT TO REPRESENT ALL AMERICAN NATIVE INDIANS. ONE OF THE YEARS BEST FILMS.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Missing: a script, real music, and historical justice...
Review: All the above things are painfully absent from "The missing" but I'll start with the most significant misses first:

do we really need yet another western that depicts the "indians" as mindless savages inflicting all the evil and the poor whites trying to save their dear lives and belongings from them? I thought we were done with this type of trash. For some ill alibi there are, yes, a couple of "good" indians as well, you know, the ones that are "good" because they side up with the whites to go after the bad indians. History excruciatingly butchered and an injustice on celluloid (again) to a people that suffered millions in dead and untold humiliations. Enough already.

Furthermore, if you somehow manage to ignore this (i couldnt) then you gotta deal with a pathetic script:
white guy who's gone off years ago to live with the indians comes back to find out his wife's dead but his daughter has grown up with daughters of her own. Bad indians step in and kidnap one of the daughters with the intent to sell'm in Mexico led by a "brujo" (an indian magician) who -predictably- has to look like a genetic experiment gone horribly wrong. White guy's daughter who hates her father decides to form an alliance with him because he's the only one that can help her track down her daughter's kidnappers. But the gang proves to be a more than formidable opponent especially because of the special powers of the brujo. Ah, not to worry though as there is nothing a mega-sorry ending couldnt fix in a hollywood film: the good guys exterminate the bad indians who in the end get transformed into cheap and mindless opponents and are showered with endless bullets (where did the good guys get so much ammunition????).

While all this is going on , in the backround there's some seriously horrible sonic torture pretending to be music and also pretending to be indian music. Problem is that indian music doesnt include synthesisers. Someone obviously didnt point this out to the geniuses that worked on the soundtrack.

Now as for the acting, i have to savor one star here for T.L Jones who is very convincing and which is no news because he usually is. But as for the rest: K.Blanchett, hmm, for a performance full of the typical western female role of crying along and screaming about, sorry no credits for that. This was unmercifully cliche to consider any bravos. The rest of the cast is fulfiling contract obligations: "say your lines and get outta there".

What i really dont understand is what kind of film choices is Jones making if he's making them??? Lately i saw the "Hunted" with him and that was a disaster and now this. I mean, this is a majorly talented actor who's been seen in some top-notch cinematic disasters lately. Baffling.

The western genre is obviously not going to be revived any time soon. Not with miserable attampts like this, that's for sure.

Unless (for reasons too disturbing to discuss) all of the above does not bother you, avoid this film. We're talking about two through and through wasted hours of your life.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Your Missing out on this movie
Review: One of the best movies of 2003.


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