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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: A violent, beautiful New Mexico western
Review: At 135 minutes it's not lean, but Ron Howard's "The Missing" is a surprisingly mean, violent addition to the Western genre. That it is beautifully shot and well-acted helps detract from the bloodiness, but the movie is not for the faint of heart. In what could be considered a long prologue, New Mexico frontierswoman Maggie (Cate Blanchett) raises cattle and her two young daughters - Lilly (Evan Rachel Wood) and Dot (Jenna Boyd) - while doing "healer" work on the side. One afternoon, near the onset of winter, her estranged father (Tommy Lee Jones) rides in - he goes by no real name, but mentions "Jones" - looking to reconcile and give Maggie money, though he abandoned her when she was a girl to live with Apache Indians. Maggie refuses, and has her "man" of sorts, ranchhand Brake(Aaron Eckhart), escort Jones off the ranch. A day later Brake is brutally killed, and Lilly is kidnapped, by a group of Apaches looking to sell white women into prostitution south of the border. Not surprisingly, Jones offers his help to track the Indians he knows so well, and Maggie, with Dot in tow, accepts. The journey is not, shall we say, a short one. Howard takes "The Missing" on two or three "color" detours in an effort to recreate the era. One involves a corrupt cavalry (headed by a slightly bewildered Val Kilmer); in another, a kidnapped photographer meets a bizarre, fearsome end at the hands of an Apache witch doctor (Eric Schweig). Named Chidin in the credits - I don't recall the name in the movie - the witch doctor is in effect a supervillain of near-indestructible proportions, and the architect of some pretty lurid slayings. He also puts a curse on Maggie from afar with a lock of her hair. But whenever the movie threatens to venture too far off the path, Jones and Blanchett answer with tough, wry performances; both actors have made a career out gritty, melodramatic roles, especially Jones, and each seems to appreciate the other's company, even if the screenplay has them at odds. Casting kids is always a crapshoot, but Wood and Boyd are pretty good as Maggie's starkly contrasted daughters. Schweig is a menacing hulk. Howard has a knack for storytelling, and more importantly, character - as an actor's director, he's usually able to deliver intimacy amidst epic backdrops. Though the editing in "The Missing" is a little shoddy - too many shifting perspectives on horse rides, too many jarring cuts from the Apaches back to Maggie - Howard nails the big scenes, and gets the ending just about right, even if takes a leap of faith to buy three beating fifteen, plus a supervillain. And like most Howard movies that get top production dollar, "The Missing" is great to look at, as it features every panoramic shot of New Mexico there is to capture, from the foothills through the pine trees to the white sands.
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: 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: 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: There's nothing special about this movie
Review: There is absolutely nothing that makes Ron Howard's newest film, "The Missing" stand out from other films. The story is okay. The characters are okay. The dialouge is okay. In fact, not only is the story okay, you've heard it a million times before. Okay, here it goes: A parent (in this case, Tommy Lee Jones) goes back to his adult child (Cate Blanchett) whom he deserted when she was little and tries to make up for it. And wouldn't you know it? Right after they reunite (and she kicks him out of her house) HER daughter is kidnapped! Well, now Cate HAS to bond with her father because he's the only one who can help get her daughter back. How's that for a coinsedence?
After that set-up (that takes way too long to get off the ground), the rest of the movie is about 2 MORE HOURS of Cate, Tommy, and Cate's other daughter riding through the desert on horseback trying to find the band of Indians that have taken all the local girls to sell in Mexico. Since it's so long, the movie gets very boring near the end. Oh, not that they don't try to make it exciting. Rattlesnakes, floods, Indian curses, they throw it all in. Actually, the Indian curse scene is in a way the climax of the movie...yawn. It's all very predictable and WAY too long. Though "The Missing" is well made, it just doesn't quite work.
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
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