Rating: 
Summary: An Outstanding Adventure
Review: Ron Howard and Brian Grazer have come up with one of the most outstanding thrillers that deals with the human heart and soul. It is a great film that would be outstanding to anybody. I don't like westerns but I fell head over heels for this movie. It is exciting and full of some amazing story plots.
First of all I would like to say that this movie does not deserve to be rated R. I have seen much worse in other movies. This movie is actually comedic in a good way. There are some jokes involving the youngest child Dot that are just hilarious. The story is well thought out and written. It shows the characters in situations that takes them away from there safe haven and makes them go off on a violent exciting adventure through the desert to find Lily who is Cate Blanchett's daughter. Cate Blanchett gives an award winning perfromance that is outstounding. Tommy Lee Jones is haunting Lee humorus and bold. He absoultly lights up the screen. And for all of those people who like to know what the music is like it was amazing. If you like the music to The Mask of Zorro this is a must have.
Ron howard gives amazing direction to his actors to make you feel like that you are on this adventure with them. A deserving 5 stars. A must see film.
Rating:
Summary: Get Lost In The Missing
Review: This movie was surprisingly very entertaining. I heard that it was too long, and it sort of was, but it was full of so action packed gunfighht sequences and horseback rides that it kept me glued to the screen.
Also, the acting in this movie was the best actiong in a movie I have seen in a LONG time. As usual, Cate Blanchett gave a breathtaking performance as Maggie, a mother of two who must struggle nad work with her father (who left her when she was young) to track down a group of "indians" who captured her daughter. Evan Rachel Wood was also, amazingly good, if you thought she was good in this...I highly recommend you see her in
"Thirteen". Jenna Boyd, who played little Dot was awesome as well and I am sure we can expect many things from her. Tommy Lee...did a fairly good job as well, but I almost thought he..(dare I say it) underacted as the father of Blanchett's character.
All in all, this movie was fantastic don't let the length get you down! It has everything, a little bit of horror, drama, action and a lot of SUSPENSE! Don't think about it too much, and don't keep saying "this would never happen"...just get lost in...
THE MISSING.
Rating: 
Summary: Good to see Once...I think
Review: If you are considering seeing this movie, I would recommend it. I enjoyed it and I am not really a fan of Westerns. I don't know if I would add this movies to my DVD collection,but it is definately worth seeing at least once.
Rating:
Summary: This may well be the most leisurely chase film every made
Review: The problem is not that "The Missing" is 135-minutes long. I have no problem with long movies. The problem with director Ron Howard's 2003 film is that the pacing is so slow. This may well be the most leisurely chase film every made. The situation, as you should know from the trailer, is that young Lily Gilkeson (Evan Rachel Wood) is abducted by someone wearing a hood. With the local sheriff (Clint Howard) and the army (Val Kilmer) unwilling or unable to lend help, Maggie Gilkeson (Cate Blanchett) has to rely on her estranged father, Samuel Jones (Tommy Lee Jones). Eventually we learn that he abandoned his family a long time ago to live with the Indians and basically throw his life away. With her father and her younger daughter, Dot (Jenna Boyd), Maggie heads off to bring Lily back.Every time there is a story in the news today about a kid being abducted we always here about how those first few hours are critical. In "The Missing" the searchers even have the advantage of knowing where Lily is being taken, but this does not spur them to any great effort. Granted, it is nice to see that Maggie does not become a hysterical wreck given what has just happened (there was more than an abduction involved in the violence), but certainly she should be a bit more frantic. Yes, the Indians they are tracking are taking their time picking up more young girls to sell across the border, but Maggie and her party do not know this. To my way of thinking they should be moving fast, pausing for the briefest of rests (tie Dot to her saddle if they need to), and certainly not stopping to bury anybody. By the time Samuel declares there is no time to stop for water, we are almost two hours into the film. On the one hand it is hard to believe that this trio is going to bring back Lily alive, but one aspect of "The Missing" that I liked was how rescue plans keep getting messed up, especially with Lily being both the victim and the cause of such circumstances. How realistic you find the bravery of the three Gilkeson women to be for the time and place is open to debate as well, as are the various ways in which "The Missing" is an old-fashioned western with modern sensibilities. Of course in addition to the rescue mission there is the gulf that needs to be bridged between father and daughter. We keep waiting to find out what Samuel's Chiricahua name Chaa-duu-ba-its-iidan means, because it clearly is going to provide insight into the story of how he has come to throw away his life. The biggest surprise to me in the film was Eric Schweig. I knew he was in the film and was keeping an eye out for the actor who had played Uncas in "The Last of the Mohicans." It was only after the film was over that I discovered Schweig was playing Chidin, the Apache brujo (male witch), who took Lily and the other girls that his group of renegade Apache cavalry scouts is taking to Mexico to sell. Even watching the movie again and knowing that is Schweig underneath that makeup, I still just do not see it. That must be why they call it acting, especially what he is doing with his eyes. Chidin is a whirlwind of cruelty and violence, which is why his magic as a brujo is so strong and which also serves to underscore that an old man, a woman, and a kid should not be able to take him down. For so much of the film Chidin is ahead of the game and it seems the only reason he loses in the end is because the script says that he does. Cinematographer Salvatore Totino clearly favors a palette of blue and white to contrast with the browns in this film. The result is a rather odd looking western, although beyond the idea that it has something to do with these color choices I cannot really explain the feeling. The performances are certainly competent enough, but that is hardly surprising given the cast. Perhaps the point here is that the Western is back as a genre, at least to the point where we have more than great films like "Dances With Wolves" and "Unforgiven," and now are back to having average films like "The Missing" as well.
Rating:
Summary: Hard Gritty Western
Review: I wanted to see "The Missing" when it came out in the movie theater but for one reason or another it passed me by. Rented the DVD, and quite frankly loved it. Tommy Lee Jones does a great job as the cantankerous grandfather, and Cate Blanchett was excellent as the hardened rancher. The plot: When a rancher's daughter is kidnapped she appeals to her estranged tracker grandfather for assistance. Together they track the kidnappers across the frontier and face mutual hardship. Can they save her Lilly or is she doomed for slavery in Mexico? I really liked the film. The cinematography was beautiful and I liked the scenes with the Native American actors. I did think some scenes were unnecessarily gruesome (the murdered ranch hands), (the tooth removal scene), but that's what the fast forward button is for. Oh, and I also thought Lilly was a complete waste of space. I think this movie would've had more impact if the person kidnapped was someone I actually liked. Excellent film. Because of violence and some gruesome scenes, I recommend for 18+ or older.
Rating:
Summary: LONG DAY'S JOURNEY
Review: Ron Howard's THE MISSING is a blend of western, action and supernatural ingredients. Having the marvelous Cate Blanchett as Maggie catapults the picture into its worthiness. Blanchett is exceptional as Maggie, a single frontier mother raising two feisty daughters (played wonderfully by Evan Rachel Wood and Jenna Boyd), while maintaining an affair with the affable Brake (Aaron Eckhart, always good). Her estranged father shows up one day and it's obvious Maggie has little affection for him. Tommy Lee Jones plays the father, with his usual swagger and rugged machismo. His performance is good, but he is overshadowed by Ms. Blanchett.
The movie has a cruelty to it, in that Eric Schweig as El Brujo is a heartless and cruel man, perhaps even a witch?? His treatment of the girls he kidnaps is brutal and inhumane, so this adds a very dark edge to the film.
The photography is sumptious, and the music appropriately moving. The film tends to bog down at times, and it's length at over two hours doesn't help. Overall, though, THE MISSING shows the talent of a very determined director and a wonderful gifted actress. That makes it worth viewing.
Rating: 
Summary: The Missing is missing something...
Review: "The Missing" is an incredible piece work, an epic western, and an effectively eerie thriller. Directed by Ron Howard and starring Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones, this film is worth a peek and watchable, despite being bogged down by repetitive flaws and an unnecessary length. Then again, 2003 wasn't the best movie year... The film involves a healer Maggie (Cate Blanchett) who lives on a farm with her lover Brake and her two children. Her father (Tommy Lee Jones) has been estranged from her since she was a child and he has since become an Indian and married many times. One evening, Maggie's father comes to their ranch in search of a healer, not realizing that she is his own daughter. She completely ignores him and quickly fixes him up. He is arrested that evening after a scuffle with Brake, who is also preparing to take the two daughters to a fair the next day. When the daughters and Brake go off to the festival, Maggie falls asleep on her porch and awakes to find a wolf in her house and a creepy feeling about the air. She is unsure of her family's whereabouts and ventures into the woods to find them. There is a butchered Brake and the younger daughter, Dot, screaming because her older sister is gone, having been kidnapped by a brutal group of Apache Indians. Maggie has her father released from jail and he assists her in finding the daughter. Dot insists on joining them and they venture off into plains, floods, and grounds of witchcraft to track the Indians. Some may call this a horror film, and in fact, I remember one critic calling it "Stephen King's 'Little House on the Prairie.'" It is not a scary film, though. The idea of kidnapping and Indians might be disturbing to some, but it is not at all scary. The trailers misrepresent the film. It is, in fact, a riveting drama with fine performances and a brain. The musical score is captivating and beautiful, certainly deserving of an Oscar nomination. The photography is gritty and evocative, capturing the essence of the pain that Maggie and her family must be going through. The screenplay is weak, though, in several spots. The dialogue is often smart but often unclear. It probably takes several viewings to truly understand this movie. The performances are really what make this film good. Cate Blanchett is brilliant, as usual, and never fails for a moment. You can't take your eyes off the screen because she is just so great. Tommy Lee Jones also reemerges with a fine performance too, worthy of an Oscar nomination. These two stars are great together, and the young actresses are good as well. Aaron Eckhart is solid, but not great, seeing as he is only in the first 30 minutes of the movie. The acting makes the movie. Overall, the film is worth a viewing, even though flaws are seen throughout. I really found it enjoyable and thrilling, but it kept ending and ending. Why do movies do this? They never want to end...do they?
Rating:
Summary: WOW !!! The return of the "Searchers"
Review: What's wrong with everybody, so many reviews rated so LOW! So I guess it's up to moi, the guy that hardly ever sees it their(the majority) way to step up and straighten things out. "The Missing" is a mostly Indian and Indian western (as opposed to Cowboy and Indian)that takes place in New Mexico in the 1880s CAST - Main Characters
Tommy Lee Jones - Samuel Jones
Cate Blanchett - Maggie Gilkeson
Evan Rachel Wood - Lily Gilkeson
Eric Schweig - Chidin, Apache Brujo
Jenna Boyd - Dot Gilkeson THE PLOT Apache renegade Army scouts are on the loose and they are murdering farmers and ranchers and kidnapping the young attractive women to be sold into white slavery in Mexico. Healer/Rancher Maggie Gilkerson's oldest daughter, Lily, perhaps seventeen is one of the captives. THE STORY Samuel Jones (Tommy Lee Jones) is Maggie Gilkerson's (Cate Blanchett)estranged father. He left Maggie's family years earlier to live among the Apache. Samuel for all appearances is an Indian and after living with the Indians for half his life he thinks like one too. Samuel rides into Maggie's ranch ostensibly looking for rapprochement but he is rejected out of hand and forced at gunpoint to leave. The next day Maggie's daughters, Lily and Dot are escorted to town by their two ranch hands to attend a fair. By dark they have not returned. In the morning a riderless horse runs through the yard. Something is very amiss! Maggie takes the horse in addition to her own and heads off to try and locate her missing party. What she finds is heart wrenching. One of the ranch hands lies naked with three arrows in his back and there is a bundle hanging from a tree. As the breeze swings the bundle around she sees that it is the other ranch hand, the foreman and her lover, trussed up in a painful contortion and brutally murdered. One good thing, Dot, the younger daughter, was told to hide and not come out. Maggie finds her totally shaken up but unharmed, however, Lily is nowhere to be found. Maggie's first thought is that, her father Samuel, has committed this monstrosity. She heads off to town and reports it to the Sheriff and suggests that it might be Samuel, who happened to be in jail, drunk and disorderly. By use of that marvelous new invention Marconi's telegraph, they discover that a group of escaped Indian renegades is murdering ranchers and abducting young women. It is believed that they are heading north and the Army is after them. Maggie's efforts to get the Sheriff's assistance are useless as he tells her to let the Army do the job. When the Sheriff asks Maggie what he should do with her father, she replies "release him" Back at her ranch, Samuel rides in and informs her that he has discovered the renegades trail, which heads south towards Mexico and not north as supposed. At this point Maggie realizes that Lily and her only hope is to enlist her father's help. Meanwhile, the renegades, now with seven women have almost finished their human harvest. The leader is Chiden, a particularly brutal and evil individual, who is also a Brujo, (a male witch) with supernatural powers, who hates Whites and kills indiscriminately. The nefarious Chiden does not like the number seven (it's bad luck for him) so they delay going to Mexico until another girl can be acquired. This buys our little search party a little more precious time, for once a captive Lily enters Mexico she is lost. Cast/Acting The cast seem to be well chosen and fit their characters quite well. There has been some discussion among other reviewers about the lack of emotion. I think emotion was portrayed perfectly. These people were settlers, farmers and ranchers. Life was hard, they did have time for emotion and once the renegades struck emotion had to be set aside for a goal of retrieving Lily. That does not mean the characters were emotionless, they weren't. Cate Blanchett and the little girl, Jenna Boyd, were superb. Blanchett's portrayal of Maggie Gilkison is about a self made, self-sufficient, brave and determined, frontierswoman out to reclaim her daughter even at the cost of her other daughter and her life. I really enjoyed Boyd's role as Dot. She was laid back and affable, kind of a bridge between the tensions of mother and grandfather. Tommy Lee Jones' portrayed a lonely older man drawing on his experiences in two societies to help his daughter to find and buy Lily back. It seems that Ron Howard has found his niche. He is a fine Director and "The Missing" is no exception. I can't believe how many reviewers said this movie was slow moving and boring. To me it was a quick 130 minutes. Yes I felt while I was watching it that it was a long movie but I was glad, because I was really enjoying it. SUMMARY Of course comparisons to the old (1956) John Wayne movie "The Searchers" are inevitable, hell I did it myself in the title. Yes, it has a similar plot but that's about it. In "The Searchers", Wayne's character is a civil war vet, a movie about White men chasing after Commanche Indians who have his niece. In "The Missing", the main characters are a gritty frontierswoman and her estranged Apache-phile father chasing renegades to recover her daughter. The only White man was one of the renegades. In 1956 no one would have thought to make a movie about a strong willed, self sufficient woman. Isn't it great? Personally, I like "The Missing more". In the fifties the movies were less realistic, more sanitized and the acting and sets were less natural. Heck both movies are good and if Ron Howard, after 47 years, said he was making a remake of "The Searchers", comparisons would have been moot and many detractors would have been singing the praises of "The Missing", the remake of the great "Searchers" I liked this movie a lot! final rating: 4.8 stars
Rating:
Summary: Not Much Missing from "The Missing"
Review: New Mexico has one of the most beautiful and haunting landscapes in the United States. Desert, arroyo, plains, twisted wood and rock formations, and a sky that is like something out of a dream. In The Missing, this landscape shifts constantly, evoking fantastic and surreal images that lend well to the mood of the story. Cate Blanchett stars as Maggie, a tough and independent frontier "healer," who is also a single mother of two girls. Her independence is not enough to save her from the nightmare that erupts when a renegade Apache brujo (sorceror/male witch) kidnaps her teenage daughter Lily. The Brujo is selling young women as sex slaves in Mexico. This man is one bad Indian. Like Lonesome Dove's Blue Duck, the Brujo lends this gritty Western authenticity in these days of forced diversity and political correctness. Not to give anything of the story away, let's just say the villian's methods of killing are creative. This makes The Missing a very violent and disturbing movie. Tommy Lee Jones stars as Maggie's estranged father. He is steeped in Indian ways himself, having lived with the Chirakawa tribe when he abandoned his family when Maggie was a little girl. Consequently, Maggie has intense hatred for her father. One of the very touching elements in the story is young Dot's eagerness to get to know her grandfather over her mother's rage. Revenge is not served up here, rather repentance is. Going after what you love, what has been taken from you, has consequences. Maggie's outright revulsion for Indians also has a terrible and unforseen consequence in the movie. Indian magic and witchcraft is real in this film, blending with the shape-shifting landscape. For further understanding of Native American witchcraft, Tony Hillerman's novel Skinwalkers is good. The movie's general sequence of events is predictable, but that was not enough to stop me from weeping at the end. Also, the suspense was incredible. I should have known with a Ron Howard movie. I plan on purchasing this DVD, and I think my husband will really enjoy it, too.
Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended
Review: I just saw The Missing for the first time last night and am buying the DVD tonight. I had to put my two cents in to counter the reviews from everyone who seem to have missed the point. If you're looking for special effects, car chases, zombies in discos or the other junk that Hollywood churns out, look elsewhere. If you would like to see an historical western with beautiful cinematography, excellent acting and character development as well as a compelling story of a woman's refusal to give up on her kidnapped daughter, I highly recommend this movie.
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