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Summary: The Missing I Can't Believe the Bad Reviews on this movie
Review: I am of native american origin and some of my family was massacred at Mountain Meadows Utah, in the same year 1857. I had never really been able to invision the way the people lived until this film. It was one, with both actors, who have my admiration completely. I will watch anything that stars either of them. Being a single mother, myself, I can not imagine how you would worry about feeding your children, and when it shows Cate wringing her hands from chopping fire wood, it brought tears to my eyes. It also refreshing to see a movie so realistic to the times with no cussing and the landscape was outstanding.
I would recommend this DVD to anyone who wants to sit on the edge of your seat, and also see human relationships that go on, no matter how much time has passed.
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Summary: Howard always tells a good story
Review: This is a good western, based on a book that was a surprise in depth. This is not your pretty, pc western. Although the heroine is strong and determined, she manages to make mistakes that prove costly. Good acting, action, and winter scenes that mirror a cold difficult existence. A bit of surprising theology throw in for the thoughtful.
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Summary: So Under-rated
Review: This movie intrigued me with the previews. Once again Hollywood gives credit to the wrong movies. This one was an edge-of-your-seat thriller with GREAT character development by Kate and Tommy. Some of the gore was tough to take, but the script managed not be trite and yet deal with the painful past colliding with an unwilling future. Ron Howard once again has pulled off a film that blends great suspence and action with complex family relationships. Don't listen to Hollywood on this one, unless your inclined to believe like them that an original take on family is over-rated. Just because its not bizzare and over the top, doesn't mean it isn't great.
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Summary: A Good Western!
Review: The Missing is a good western, although it could have been better if it was less conventional in certain aspects. Ron Howard does a good job with the landscapes and the cinematography is excellent in a film that is not nearly as good as it should be, yet better than most westerns and films released this year. Cate Blanchett is wonderful as a single mother on the frontier, and she displays strength not usually given to women in westerns. She should definitely be nominated for an Oscar for her great performance. Tommy Lee Jones is good as her father who abandoned her when she was younger, although he needs to find some new roles that don't involve hom tracking people. It is getting kind of old. The Indian characters are stereotypical and while Howard tries to show them on both sides, he fails at it for the most part. The movie's supernatural element was good, but underused, especially compared to the previews for the movie. The Missing is a good western, but will not be remembered in a genre that is forgotten and needs a great one to be rekindled.
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Summary: Missing was missing a script.
Review: This film kind of reminded me of the John Wayne/Jeffery Hunter western "The Searchers", even though the similarities are few and far between. I don't know what went wrong with this movie but I never really cared about what happened with the characters. The movie is well cast but they don't know quite know how to make the audience care about both the charecters nor does the story ever take off and go someplace. High points of the movie are mostly in the location and the cimatography that made the land that the charecters lived in, seem somewhat mystical and mysterious. Tommey Lee Jones's performance seemed flat and hollow. Even the under-rated Val Kilmer, does not quite play a character that you could like or find interesting.
The problem seems to have been script. It was not well planned out and did not map the direction that the movie should go. (a good screenplay will do that). But it seems that good screenplays and good movies are becoming harder and harder to find these days.
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Summary: LOVED this film!
Review: I am not a trained movie critic, nor did I go to the theater with any agenda other than to check out this movie, after seeing the scary, intriguing advertisements on T.V. I was hoping the movie would be true to the pre-release hype, since so many movies give you the best lines, etc. in the commercials and then fall flat on the big screen. Actually, I wasn't sure I was going to like it, since I really don't care for movies in the Western genre. Well, what a tremdndous surprise I got! Not only was this movie entertaining and fast-paced, it was a fabulous part for Jones, who for the most part has played hard-bit/un-emotional types. In this film, the audience gets to see his range and some tenderness from his "tough guy" character. I was very moved by his ability to maintain the toughness while showing emotion. Also, it was very interesting to imagine what it must have been like to live in that day and time, particularly as a woman - these types of things really did happen, lending a touch of realism to a somewhat contrived plot. VERY ENJOYABLE! There really is a little something for everyone: Suspense, emotional strife (father-daughter, mother-daughter), action-packed battles (I've read some of the other reviews, which stated this was "violent". I didn't find it to be overly violent, and really, that wasn't even an impression I had while viewing it OR afterwards) - classic "Good VS. Evil". (Might be a little too scary for young children.) The writing was excellent - these actors really had a lot to work with, and they were very well-cast. And at the very end, when "Directed by Ron Howard" appeared on screen, I smiled to myself and thought, "Of Course!" The quality bore out his well-deserved reputation as one of the fore-most directors of our time! There is "buzz" about Oscar contention and I hope it's true - this project (and all those involved in it) is very deserving of that honor. My father (56 yrs.) and I (33 yrs.) saw the movie independently and both came to the same conclusion: This film is one of the best we have EVER seen. My only complaint: not in the theaters long enough, especially since I have now told everyone I know that they MUST see it! I can't wait to buy it and I encourage you to do yourself a favor - make the investment - BUY THIS FILM!
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Summary: THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY MIND
Review: When this Ron Howard western wasn't strictly formula, it was simply viscious. Beatings, stabbings, ritualistic murders and a constant peril to children give this film a smutty look highlighted by a bound and gagged group of young girls being dragged across the American southwestern desert. Plot contivances pile up as fast as the dead bodies. Just how much could these kidnapped girls be worth that they are guarded by enough gunmen to rob the Wells Fargo bank? The supernatural elements are an excuse for lack of any dramatic depth. This is a 'C-minus' western with a big glossy shine in which the American Indians are not only savage-like bad guys, but they possess evil powers as well. I guess in the mind of these filmmakers, that is an elevated status. Hey kimosabe, find me a John Wayne film quick!
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Summary: Left the theater feeling empty
Review: Although I think Jones and Blanchett are easily two of the most talented actors in Hollywood, I was disappointed with this film. I think the screenplay was missing a substantial amount of substance. When I left the movie, I felt empty, like I'd just wasted two hours. The movie isn't BAD, per se, but it's just nothing incredibly outstanding or impressionable.
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Summary: a very good western
Review: A film by Ron Howard This is Ron Howard's first film since his Academy Award winning "A Beautiful Mind." Considering his other films, this is the not the movie I would have expected from Howard. This is a much darker, grittier film than Howard's other movies and I wasn't sure how well he would handle it. The answer is that he handled the violence and the depth of the darker elements rather well. The film is set in late 1800's New Mexico. Maggie (Cate Blanchett) is a homesteader living along with her two daughters, Lily (Evan Rachel Wood) and Dot (Jenna Boyd). Maggie's eldest daughter, Lily, is captured by renegade Indians during a raid that killed Maggie's lover (Aaron Eckhart) and another hired man. Maggie is determined to rescue her child, but when she does not receive any help from the local sheriff or the army, she accepts help from her father, Samuel (Tommy Lee Jones). Maggie has been estranged from her father for years. He abandoned the family when Maggie was younger, and she has never forgiven him. Samuel has spent his life living among the Indians and he appears to be more Indian in manner and dress than a "white man". Maggie and Samuel bring along Maggie's feisty young daughter, Dot. This is a really bad idea and they do not want to bring her, but Dot insists that the moment she has the opportunity, she'll just follow them by herself. Maggie, Samuel, and Dot begin to track the Indians to rescue Lily. As they follow the trail, we learn amore about Maggie and Samuel, and also more about the Indians who have taken Lily. These Indians intend to sell the girls into slavery in Mexico, and are led by a witch/shaman with a nasty reputation. With only two major westerns released this year, it would be a little misleading to say that it is the second best western of the year (behind the fantastic Open Range), but "The Missing" is a rather good movie with one of the best roles for a woman ever in a genre that tends to minimalize the gender. Cate Blanchett gives a powerful performance and the focus stays mostly on her, with Tommy Lee Jones giving a solid supporting performance. Val Kilmer also has a minor supporting role as an Army officer. I was impressed with "The Missing", but I'm not sure if that was because of my low expectations coming into the movie or because the movie really is that fantastic. Maybe a little of both.
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Summary: Blanchett's better than the movie itself.
Review: Cate Blanchett's portrayal of a prairie healer in "The Missing" is, sadly, the only really good thing that comes out of this Ron Howard-directed Western. The rest of it ventures somewhere between "implausible" to "downright unbelievable." Visually, the film is interesting. But the story is hokey and contrived. The film makes the same mistake with Tommy Lee Jones as a lot of his recent films do. They cast him, expect him to play a "type" and then don't know what to do with him. Jones is pretty good, but only Blanchett is able to elevate herself above the material. Aaron Eckhart, Eric Schweig and promising young actress Evan Rachel Wood are similarly wasted. This is not an above-par Western. It's a hokey, ridiculously plotted B-movie Western whenever Blanchett isn't front-and-center. The ending of the film is formulaic and abrupt. Sadly, I wish I'd missed THE MISSING.
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