The Missing: Movie Review, DVD Review (2003)

(Originally published 2003)

Directed by Ron Howard, written by Ken Kaufman, 135 minutes, rated R.

In the opening scene of Ron Howard's western “The Missing,” Cate Blanchett, in full period drag, straddles a writhing Mexican woman, holds her down and pulls the last rotten tooth from her head.

It’s 1885 and times are tough in New Mexico, particularly for a beleaguered healer like Blanchett’s Maggie Gilkeson, a single woman raising two daughters with the help of Brake Baldwin (Aaron Eckhart), the scruffy cowpoke she loves, albeit secretly.

Like novelist Willa Cather’s great character, Antonia, Maggie is a product of the frontier.

She’s bold and spirited, tough and unshrinking. As played by Blanchett in one of her most rewarding and challenging roles since her breakout performance in “Elizabeth,” Maggie is a force to be reckoned with, which is a good thing since her teenage daughter, Lilly (Evan Rachel Wood), has recently been kidnapped by a band of Apaches determined to sell her and other women into sexual slavery in Mexico.

Reminiscent of John Ford’s 1956 classic, “The Searchers,” in which John Wayne gave one of the best, most memorable performances of his career, “The Missing” conspires to reconnect Maggie with her father Samuel (Tommy Lee Jones), who abandoned Maggie as a child and who has since re-entered her life to make amends.

In spite of the cold fist of hatred Maggie feels toward him, she soon realizes she has no choice but to seek his help. Indeed, rather conveniently, Samuel has lived among the Apaches for years; he knows their customs, their language, how they think. And so, along with Maggie’s young daughter, Dot (Jenna Boyd), the three go in search of Lilly, a perilous journey that often proves uncomfortably violent.

The film, which screenwriter Ken Kaufman based on Thomas Eidson’s novel, “The Last Ride,” is more claustrophobic than this year’s other western, “Open Range,” and it never achieves the scenic greatness of the films of Sam Peckinpah, Howard Hawks and Ford. But it does have energy, comedy and passion, rising above the contrivances that drive it because Howard’s heart is in it so completely.

There are moments in this movie that are unshakable, such as the harrowing, beautifully shot scene in which Maggie and Dot race through the woods on horseback; the look that wavers across Maggie’s face when it occurs to her that she might have lost her daughter for good to the evil Chidin (Eric Schweig); the scores of fiery arrows hurtling through the air and sinking still ablaze into the bellies and necks of unsuspecting horses.

Howard doesn’t hold back in “The Missing,” and neither does his cast. Together, they’re a force, lifting the movie above its unnecessary lapses into mysticism and mythmaking with superlative action and acting.

Grade: B+