Just when you thought westerns were dead and there’ll never be another good one like Clint Eastwood’s UNFORGIVEN, Ron Howard rolls out THE MISSING. Beautiful Southwest landscapes filmed on location and great actors a movie to watch with captivation. Cate Blanchett is living a reasonably good life as a ’’frontier woman.’’ A single mother with two girls (the teenager played by Evan Rachel Wood, pre THIRTEEN fame), and a companion, played by the wonderful Aaron Eckhart, that completes the picture. Blanchett’s character is doing just fine thank you as a ’’healer, ’’ a dentist/physician combo, when her estranged father, played by Tommy Lee Jones, rides in. He left his family to live like Native Americans and we aren’t supposed to warm up to him immediately because of it. And then the action starts.
A daughter is kidnapped by Natives to sell in Mexico, and now Maggie (Blanchett) must look for with the man she most hates, a fake Native. Your eyes and ears will thank you after you see it. Plenty of horses, frontier lifestyle (check out the opening scene), and Native American lifestyle. DVD has alternate endings that would have never worked, set pictures, and behind the scenes featurette. Extra bonus of Ron Howard’s amateur attempts of film making before he was ever Opie or a Cunningham. And for those of you that are in the know... Yes, his brother is in this film too.