| The Missing | | Cast : | Tommy Lee Jones, Cate Blanchett, Evan Rachel Wood | | Director : | Ron Howard | | Studio : | Columbia Tristar Hom | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | November 26, 2003 | | DVD Released Date : | June 07, 2005 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language), English (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 06, 2005 | | Summary | The Missing Plot | Content
 | This film has some of the lamest set-up sequences.
spoliers
Cate Blanchet's daughter, who's been kidnapped along with a number of other young girls by Indian sex-slavers manages to cut her way free, sneaks over to one of the sleeping Indians, manages to take his revolver, then hands it to antoher woman, who so distraught about the death of her baby that she's crying and crying and there's Cate's daughter handing her a gun! So, the woman shoots herself in the head just as the daughter's about to get on a horse. Everyone wakes up and stop her escape.
Could she have done anymore to be recaptured?
Later on Tommy Lee Jones and an Indian go to rescue her. She's gagged, and so while Tommy Lee Jones is causing a distraction the Indian sneaks to where all the girls are, takes of Cate's daughter's gag and she starts screaming like a banshee so all the bad dudes come running and gun the good guy down! Again, helping to prevent her escape. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 23, 2005 | | Summary | Watch the Indian Lobby Clobber This One | Content
| The kidnapped girls in this formula western, even a sister who is helping to find them, will drive you to distraction. They pout, demand attention and to be treated as adults, endanger themselves and unwittingly act to foil their rescue. Grandfather's advice is not to take the youngest along. Had it been followed, the film might have ended sooner. This is one of those movies with a series of protracted endings, the kind that could easily end anywhere but never seem to end at all. Truly, it isn't four hours long.
Grandfather (Tommie Lee Jones) is a white man who years earlier deserted his family to become an Indian (no explanation why.) Years later he turns up in time to help his estranged daughter (Cate Blanchett) rescue her daughter from a bad, really ugly Indian whose cohorts sell girls across the Mexican border. To be politically correct, there are a pair of good, really handsome Indians who also ride to the rescue and, because of the girls' behavior, are killed or wounded.
This movie has beautifully photographed locations and Blanchett, who is always watchable. Jones smoke-signals in his performance. Aaron Eckhardt and Val Kilmer come and go before they're even noticed. It also has Ron Howard's humdrum direction, bad editing of some action scenes (what's going on?), and the assumption that we will accept Indian superstition as perfectly sensible plot points. From afar, a witchdoctor makes Blanchett deathly ill. She recovers, but this movie doesn't. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 09, 2005 | | Summary | A LITTLE OFF | Content
| I HAVE READ THE REVIEWS OF OTHERS AND EVERYONE SEEMS TO AGREE THAT THE ACTING WAS GOOD. AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO SEEMS TO THINK THAT TOMMY LEE JONES WAS ONLY PUTTING ENOUGH ACTING ABILITY IN THIS FILM TO JUST GET IT OVER WITH? ANYONE ELSE THINK THIS IS TRUE? |
| Rating | | | Date | July 08, 2005 | | Summary | A little Misleading | Content
| When I read the back of the DVD case it mentioned a hooded phantom shapeshifter kidnapper. I remembered the TV trailers and I thought it might be good. I watched it, and it was okay. Like most say, it was too long, and there was never any supernatural element like I expected. The movie may have been better if I hadn't expected something like that from the beginning, and perhaps that is the source of my disappointment. |
| Rating | | | Date | June 02, 2005 | | Summary | More Action Than Drama | Content
| Ron Howard's 'The Missing' is more of an action film rather than a drama and that's what seems to disappoint many of the reviewers on this site. Apart from these aspects in the screenplay, the film has a good script, good acting, and excellent cinematography.
The film follows Maggie Gilkeson (Cate Blanchett) after her daughter is kidnapped by some renegade Apaches who went on a killing/kidnapping spree while escaping from their reservation. The rogue Indians are led by a powerful medicine man who can brew potions and conjure spirits. Maggie is an empiricist and follows the good book and so has no belief in such things. Desperate to find her child, she hesitantly accepts to have her estranged father (Tommy Lee Jones) lead the way. Jones' character is the antithesis of Blanchett in that he believes in the ways of the Indians and the spirit world.
The screenplay is somewhat uneven in that it can't decide whether it wants to be an action film or a suspense drama. As a result, the character development comes out somewhat empty and cliche while the action scenes are really great. Although some reviewers complained about the Indian antagonists being too evil, I never got that impression. This is a good film to watch and it has plenty of suspense and action. The cinematography is also excellent. |
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