Rating: 
Summary: Familiar as living in the current southwest...
Review: Maybe it just taking living in the Southwest to understand why the whole thing seemed familiar as home to me. Curanderos/as advertise their services on telephone poles, raw eggs to remove fevers is still done. It would be like me trying to explain life on the Scottish Highlands. No film is perfect but everything blended together makes it a wonderful film.
Rating: 
Summary: Doesn't Live Up to the Reviews!
Review: I'm a huge fan of Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones, but this film was a real "yawner." At more than 2 hours long, it went on for about 40 minutes longer than it needed to and the ending was entirely predictable. Overall, I thought Cate and Tommy did a good job, but Tommy's perpetual whining (even in Chiricahua) grated after a while, as did Cate's harsh western accent which brings to mind the performance of Robin Weigel (?) on Deadwood as Calamity Jane. There were also several plot holes in the story -- for example, Lily giving the gun away during an escape attempt (who didn't know what would happen?), when Dot was brought along to find her sister, etc. Too many instances where this viewer said, "Oh, okay...they did that so we can have a problem with it later." I expected more from such talents as TLJ, CB, and Ron Howard.
Rating:
Summary: Astonishing
Review: I am amazed that some folks find fault with this very fine film.
Just sit back and appreciate.
Rating: 
Summary: SOMETHING IS INDEED MISSING...
Review: Ron Howard is a great director, which is why I found this film to be somewhat disappointing, as it is not up to his usual standards. Despite a stellar cast, the film falls somewhat flat. Part of it has to do with the ambitious screenplay, as it promises much but never makes totally good on its promise. The pacing is so slow that it seems to take forever for the film to come to its somewhat unsatisfactory end. The plot revolves around Maggie Gilkeson (Cate Blanchett), a tough frontierswoman in late nineteenth century New Mexico. She lives on a ranch with her two daughters and two ranch hands, one of whom is in love with her. She is a healer of sorts and is estranged from her father (Tommy Lee Jones), who abandoned her and her mother when she was a child in order to go and live with the Indians. Notwithstanding the estrangement, he goes to her ranch to try to make past wrongs right, only to meet with rejection. While there, Maggie's teenage daughter, Lily (Evan Rachel Wood), is kidnapped by a group of renegade Indians led by El Brujo (Eric Schweig), an evil miscreant who plans to sell the girls he has abducted into white slavery in Mexico. In abducting her, he kills the two ranch hands who stand in the way of his getting his prey. As part of Maggie's father's atonement for his past wrongs, he agrees to help Maggie track down the abductors and lead her and her younger daughter, Dot (Jenna Boyd), to the hapless Lily. One of the problems with the film is that Lily is an unlikable character. The viewer does not really care what happens to her. Moreover, although the camera beguilingly kisses the chiseled planes of Cate Blanchett's face, Maggie is also an unlikable character. Tommy Lee Jones fares somewhat better as his character is likable, but the standout in this film is beautiful little Jenna Boyd in the role of Dot. She is a natural and the saving grace of this film. This is essentially a B movie with an A cast. Still, the cast simply cannot make up for the tedium of the script. One should rent, rather than buy, this movie.
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: WOW
Review: In a middle of nowhere there's a lively house in which a woman, her two daughters live. One day the eldest daughter gets kidnapped by some vicious Mexican outlaws. If you're after a movie in which every actor/actress gives their 100% - then The missing is the best choice you could make.
Rating:
Summary: AWESOME!
Review: WOW is all I can say! GREAT acting GREAT directing and GREAT cinematography!! I have watched this movie countless times and have yet to get tierd of it! Its most definitely worth the time to watch! Cate Blanchett is AWESOME! (when is she not?) and Tommy Lee Jones gets into a more wild side....and he is AWESOME too! just go rent it...or buy it...just watch it!!
Rating:
Summary: watch the trailer--it's cheaper
Review: i went into this flick expecting something powerful from such a good cast. i blame the plot and script mostly. fine actors had nothing to work with. anti-climatic and predictable. disappointing.
Rating: 
Summary: A Good Flick
Review: The Missing is a good movie. It's not an epic film worthy of Oscars and high praise, but it is quite entertaining. Ron Howard is a talented director, and he had a good cast to work with. I haven't seen Tommy Lee Jones do anything bad, and Cate Blanchett is very good. Howard also had a well-written script to put to film. The movie starts fairly slowly, but not in a boring way. I suppose since I knew what the film was about I was more apt to stay focused. That's not saying, however, that I would have lost interest otherwise. There's some pretty good character development, especially with Jones' and Blanchett's characters. Their strained relationship is well displayed, but not overdone. The movie takes off about a half hour in when one of Blanchett's daughters turns up missing. This is where the violence starts, too. One thing this movie does not lack is violence. The hunt for the missing daughter is well executed and is pretty realistic, with a few hiccups and failed attempts. The villian is convincing as a witch who collects women and casts spells. Although it's a bit over two hours, I was kept interested throughout. Good action and fair dialogue moves the movie along pretty well.
Rating:
Summary: Sweeping Cinematics
Review: Ron Howard's hardly tiptoeing into the western genre with this fairly graphic and violent story concerning abduction, white slavery and mystical powers, and the end result is actually fairly good. Cate Blanchett has to reluctantly call on the aid of her estranged father, to help track down and rescue her daughter, kidnapped in an Indian ambush early in the picture, and Howard cleverly weaves the resentful divide between the two main characters, whilst hinting at, but never promising a reconciliation, in the subplot that runs in tandem to the main story. The acting performances are excellent, particularly from Jenna Boyd playing the younger sister (somehow overlooked in the initial raid), who joins the search party, and some excellent panoramic camera work graces the movie throughout, showing the isolation, and dangers of the time, period, and place in almost tangible form. Eric Schweig is frighteningly villianous as the mysterious witch doctor indian leading the band of kidnappers, and the movie promises much in the way of tense intrigue, and powerful viewing. Running over two hours however seemed to me to be an over indulgence, and one feels that Howard stops the action a few too many times along the way to sniff the scenic roses, so to speak, which does more than break the movie up a little. Tommy Lee Jones is as usual, excellent in the role of Blanchetts father (the once white man "gone Indian") who pulls everything together in the story, and adds much credibility to the script. Often very graphically violent, as well as in suggestion, this movie could also be cross genred to a supernatural thriller in a more contemporary setting, which shows the depth of the direction. As it is however, a good, but not a great movie. Enjoy
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