The Missing

Maggie Gilkeson is a single mother working as a doctor in New Mexico. She is hardy and seemingly strong. When an old man with Indian looks shows up seeking treatment, she finds that he is her father, whom she has blamed for her mother's death when he abandoned them as a child. She rejects his attempts to apologise and sends him on his way. When an Indian raiding party kidnaps Maggie's eldest, Lily, she has to turn to Samuel for his ability to track them.

With so few westerns being released to our multiplexes it is important not to go crazy with hype when one is released. In the UK we will have this film and Open Range released within a few weeks of one another and nearly every review you read can't help but draw attention to that as if somehow the recent Westerns we've had are some sort of golden age. I watched this just as I watch any film of any genre, whether the western happens to be neglected recently or not. The plot here is basically the journey and Jones' attempts at a sort of redemption. The film is perhaps a touch long, but it still fills the running time well. The action stuff is good but it is also well complimented by the more emotional core. It isn't perfect of course, but it does well and makes for an engaging and entertaining film. Of the things I'd like to have seen gone, the whole black magic side of the film didn't work for me and gave the story a mysticism that I didn't think it actually needed.

The cast are very good though. Jones manages to actually play an unexplained white man who was `with the Indians' without it being unbearably laughable. He is a more interesting character than the writing would have done alone or with a lesser actor. Blanchett makes up for her dire work in LOTR with a gutsy performance that gradually transforms as the film goes. Schweig is a great baddie despite his low screentime. It is good that the PC brigade didn't mean that this character had to be twisted in keeping with the modern cliché that all Indians are moral and upright. Boyd is much better here than in that terrible Dickie Roberts thing. She does have to do a little too much screaming at times but generally is up to the task. Support from Kilmer, Clint Howard and others are welcome in support and there is not really a weak link in the cast.

Overall this is not a great western, and wouldn't really stand out in the genre. However it is one of the better films out in the cinema right now. It has a good central story with reasonably good characters and it is only the mystical stuff and some weaknesses in the script that stops it being better.

It's 1885 New Mexico, Samuel Jones (Tommy Lee Jones) has return to reconcile with his estranged daughter Maggie Gilkeson (Cate Blanchett). He had abandoned her 20 years ago, and she rejects him right away. When her oldest daughter Lilly (Evan Rachel Wood) is kidnapped by Indian outlaws, Maggie must seek his father's help.

This is a departure from the usual Ron Howard fare. It's moody atmosphere can be attributed mostly to Tommy Lee Jones' performance. It's a fascinating side note to Howard's career and great to see him imitate 'The Searchers'. There is a lot of ugliness being shown but the ending is too traditional for this stark dark tale. I think Howard couldn't really go to the lower depths in the end. It's a great effort for an accomplished director to go outside his comfort zone.

I'm typically not a fan of Westerns - being female may have something to do with it. But I liked this one. It has a good story, along with superb character development that causes you to care what's going on in the film.

The most stand out aspect for me was the villain played by Eric Schweig. He totally creeped me out. I looked up his IMDb photos and he looks nothing like he did in the film - so the makeup department had a lot to do with making his face as ugly as they did. It really adds to the evil nature of this man.

Jones is quite convincing as a white man wanting to be Indian. His face looks so aged and weathered - you believe he has lived out in the harsh western wilderness all his life. I'm a big fan of his and could watch him do his thing all day.

The director and writers did a good job of creating tension and suspense in the film. There are numerous fight and chase scenes that had me on the edge of my seat. There is quite a bit of explicit violence so this isn't one for young kids to watch.

I think the movie weaves a good tale of hardship, tragedy, failings, forgiveness and redemption. The title, I think, refers to not only her daughter that is missing - I think it refers to several themes missing in the life of Cate Blanchett's character. First, there is the missing dad that abandoned her. There's the missing trust of men in general since she apparently was the victim of rape - and that subsequently resulted in the birth of her daughter. There are also the fathers of her daughter's who are no where to be seen - so that her daughters are having to grow up without a dad as well. No husband either (just a live-in boyfriend). She is totally alone and has to fend for herself and her girls. Blanchett does a great job of bringing the steeliness of her character to life.

Without giving away what happens, I found the ending very touching.

God, how this film touched me. I saw something in Ms. Blanchett that I have never seen before; she actually became the character from the book and I was moved. After seeing the movie I tracked the book down ( it was difficult believe it or not ) and finished it in six hours. I am wondering why the screen writers changed the final scenes. Don't get me wrong, Ron Howard makes good to great movies ( this is a solid film from the historical point of view as well ) but I am left with more questions for him than I feel I will ever get answers.

Ron Howard did not intend to make a straight up Western movie. That's the first problem here. Howard didn't want The Missing to be identified with a specific genre. This is part Western, part period drama, part mystical thriller, part action movie. Using several genres to make this unique could have worked, if Howard had combined them all in one. But the problem is that he seemed to keep changing his mind every 25 minutes of screentime. At first it's a period drama about a family, then it's a western, then it's an action movie, then it's a mystical thriller. There was no consistency with what the story was supposed to be. To add to this, The Missing was too long. I have no problem with long movies. I don't mind movies that are 3:30 hours long, if every scene feels like it belongs and is relevant. But here, there are several scenes that could have been cut. And going back to my complaint about there not being a specific genre, I think it could have worked if it was only a period drama/action/western. But when it got into the mystical Indian witchcraft, I checked out. We had more than an hour and a half building this up as a legitimate and realistic dramatic film taking place in the western time period, and all of a sudden, it's a fantasy movie. If it had been about mystical Indian witchcraft from the start, those scenes would not have been out of place. But to spring it on the audience the way it was done, it was totally out of place.

I feel a little weird making my complaints about The Missing, because I actually did enjoy watching it, for the most part. I thought it built an interesting story and I was satisfied with how it concluded. Tommy Lee Jones is at his best since Rules Of Engagement. Cate Blanchett was without a doubt at her best since Elizabeth. And the dialogue is fantastic, as is the Cinematography. James Horner surprise me with his score. It was different from what I'm used to him doing. I loved the story and thought it was entertaining to watch. So why doesn't The Missing work as well as it could have? Simply because Ron Howard had a very ambitious idea about how to make a Western movie different and unique, but didn't spend quite enough time developing it. If Howard had taken an extra 6 months of pre-production, I'm convinced this could have been the brilliant movie that Howard probably had a vision for.