Python Hyena The Missing (2003): Dir: Ron Howard / Cast: Cate Blanchett, Tommy Lee Jones, Aaron Eckhart, Evan Rachel Wood, Val Kilmer: Not one of Ron Howard's stronger films and it owes nearly everything to the superior John Ford classic The Searchers. It is detailed in structure but recycled in plot. It also contains one of those justified violent outcomes that should be beyond Howard whose work includes such masterpieces as A Beautiful Mind and Apollo 13. Set in old western times, Cate Blanchett plays a widowed mother of two daughters who is known for her healing power through surgery. Tommy Lee Jones plays her Indian father whom she hates because he abandoned them. Central plot regards the kidnapping of the oldest daughter by Indians to sell as slaves. Blanchett is forced to reunite with her father to track them down thus leading to a predictable violent climax. Fine performances by Blanchett and Jones who rise above the obvious conventions but supporting roles are lacking. Evan Rachel Wood as the kidnapped daughter makes escape attempts but otherwise is a useless role. Aaron Eckhart appears briefly as the ill fated man Blanchett lives with. Even Val Kilmer makes an appearance and it cannot even help his career get back on track. The film feels too much like a remake with its hooky spiritual elements that should entirely go missing. Score: 5 / 10

jsvedosh If you enjoy watching great actors at the top of their game, you will love The Missing. Cate Blanchette turns in a subtle, moving, powerful performance. She can convey pages of dialog in a moment's expression; she has a magnetic presence that glues you to the screen. Tommy Lee Jones also delivers an above-average performance, and for Tommy Lee Jones that is a great performance indeed. Evan Rachel Wood and Jenna Boyd are a solid supporting cast. Ms. Wood has been precocious and promising for many years; each new performance turns some of that promise into solid accomplishment.This is not a great movie. The screenplay is weak. The story is trite, the roles are at best two-dimensional, everything is predictable. The great cast puts enough flesh on the thin dialog to make the characters plausible, complex, and interesting. But this is a tired Western tale. Indians snatch white girl. Mother and her champion go off in pursuit. (Stop me if you've heard this one.) The updated story is politically corrected -- here we have both good and bad Indians. Ron Howard does a credible job bringing it to life. There are some lovely shots and some nice cutting. The score is good. But the screenplay is as stale as a week-old pizza. Nothing will keep you from yawning through the climax.See this movie it for the acting. It's worth it.

Paul Tremblay Ron Howard probably directed one of his best movies with The Missing, but that's not saying much. Howard is a master at predictability as he rarely catches his viewers unaware at any level, be it the detailed moment (when Blanchett investigates the non-return of Brake, Emilio and the girls, you absolutely know what she will find and when) to the overall movie (had Jones survived I would have been the most surprised of viewers). Howard is an excellent technician but he couldn't blow any life in material like The Da Vinci Code or Angels and Demons. Beautiful Mind is interesting in that respect because the narrative does keep us on our toes and we keep wondering what is real and what is imagined, but once our curiosity is satisfied Howard keeps battering a now-useless suspense at us. In The Missing the opportunities kept building up and presenting themselves: the two extreme religious aspects (Maggie and her European Christianity as opposed to the Brujo and his native, earth-bound spirituality) which could potentially express the cultural and colonialist antagonism at play. In the middle was Jones, the former ranger playing native: the whole thing could explode into a rich debate where no one is right or wrong. Instead the first half of the movie ends to let the gunfights and battles start, seemingly unrelated to the overlaying conflicts displayed in the first hour. Maggie becomes a gun-totting brood defender and we only learn through the deleted scenes that Jones was no rancher but had left because he was a painter. In the same way in which Apollo 13 could not possibly end differently from the historical fact (the capsule made it back to Earth...) the same here is true: the family is re-united into a world where the ranchers survive and the natives don't. The only way natives could apparently express their grievances was through acts of sadistic barbarism, according to the narrative. Of course they lost...

TheLittleSongbird I wasn't sure whether I wanted to see The Missing, after hearing so many negative things about it. That said, part of me knew I should see it because the cast were of such high calibre. After finally watching The Missing, I actually thought it was a good movie with a great cast. I can see why some may dislike it, while the story has a great idea and is very gripping the changes in focus(western, than mystery thriller then a mystical theme introduced) become all too frequent and convoluted. The ending seemed rather tired and stretched too, while the last thirty minutes or so weren't as interesting as the rest of the film. However, it is a visually captivating movie, very well photographed and striking in the scenery. The music score is also powerful and the script is generally good and the mysticism was interesting to watch and had an intriguing angle to it. The cast are great, Cate Blanchett gives meat to her character and gives another strong account of herself, and Tommy Lee Jones looks the part and is suitably commanding. Of the support cast, although Evan Rachel Wood is good, Eric Schwieg's genuinely frightening villain gets top honours here. Overall, a great cast but for me the movie was just good, several impressive things but some area for improvement too. 7/10 Bethany Cox