Since the summer, I have been able to see several movies in the theater. I think I have seen more this year than I have in any year before. Several months ago I first started to see previews for The Missing. The movie looked interesting to me and I decided I wanted to see it.
Maggie Gilkeson was a single mother raising her two daughters, Lily and Dot, in New Mexico in the late 1800's. Maggie was the healer for the area. She didn’t always get paid for what she did. Maggie had a ranch and two men worked for her on it. Lily and Dot also did things to help with the cattle. Lily wasn’t happy with life on the ranch and she planned to move to a city as soon as she could. She wore fancy and frilly clothes to do work around the house and with the cattle. Maggie and Lily were having some trouble getting along. Maggie was involved with Brake, one of the men who worked for her. He was protective of Maggie.
Samuel Jones arrived at Maggie’s wanting treatment for something. Brake met with Sam and told him he could see Maggie in the morning and he could spend the night in the barn. Sam went up to the house that night. Maggie seemed upset to see him. She refused to let him eat with them. Later that night she told Brake that Sam was her father. He’d left his wife and family when Maggie was Dot’s age to go live with the Indians. Maggie wasn’t happy to see him and didn’t want him around. Dot and Lily overheard the conversation. Dot seemed to like the idea of her grandfather being an Indian.
The next morning, Maggie saw Sam. He tried to talk to her, and even wanted to give her some money, but she didn’t want to talk and didn’t want his money. She told him to leave. Dot seemed sad to see Sam leave. Lily didn’t seem to care and she called him a savage. Lily was upset because she wanted to go into town with some of her friends and Maggie wouldn’t let her go. The next day, Lily and Dot went out with Brake to do something with the cattle. They were supposed to be back before dark. Maggie stayed back at the house. The next morning, they still hadn’t returned. Dot’s horse came back alone. Maggie was very worried and went out looking for them. She found Dot and learned that a group of Indians had taken Lily. Sheriff Purdy told Maggie that there had been other similar attacks on homes in the state. He contacted the Army, whom believed the group was heading north. Sheriff Purdy wouldn’t do anything else to help Maggie.
Maggie was planning to go looking for Lily herself. Dot insisted she was going too. Sam came back to the house, saying he had seen the tracks and said that the army was going the wrong way. He believed the men who took Lily were heading for Mexico. He told Maggie that he’d heard of men kidnaping women and then selling them in Mexico. Sam said that he could track them and he would help Maggie look for Lily. Sam, Maggie, and Dot headed off. They discovered where the group had hit after taking Lily. They did meet up with a different unit of the Army. The Lieutenant said he had his orders and he couldn’t go looking for the men who took Lily. She and Sam continued on their journey. They discovered that a man considered to be a witch by his people was behind the kidnapings of the women. Maggie had to trust Sam with Dot’s safety at times. Maggie and Sam managed to get along better as they continued on their journey.
CAST
Tommy Lee Jones - Samuel Jones
Cate Blanchett - Maggie Gilkeson
Evan Rachel Wood - Lily Gilkeson
Jenna Boyd - Dot Gilkeson
Aaron Eckhart - Brake
Val Kilmer - Army Lieutenant
Clint Howard - Sheriff Purdy
Ron Howard - Director
The Missing was released in November of 2003, the day before Thanksgiving. The movie was longer at 130 minutes long and rated R. This is not a movie for children to see. The movie was based on a book by Thomas Eidson. I did just see the book in my local bookstore. It was originally published with a different title - I can’t remember the other title now. Just from reading the back of the book, I noticed a few things that were different. Maggie was still married, and the family had a different last name. I don’t know what else might have been changed from the book because I haven’t read it.
I did really enjoy The Missing. It was a little slower paced at the beginning while things were being set up, but that wasn’t boring to me. Once Lily was taken, the paced picked up when Maggie and Sam went looking for her. They encountered some dangerous situations on their journey. There were a few suspenseful moments in the movie. There were a few things that I thought were scary in the movie, but I didn’t think it was a scary movie overall. I was more disturbed by seeing a bunch of rattlesnakes. The one Indian that others said was a witch hung the snakes in a tree. I think he also milked the venom from some of the snakes, but I had my eyes covered when the snakes were around, so I may be wrong about that. I peeked once, and it seemed like he was doing that. The snakes didn’t turn up too often, but it was more than enough for me. Anyone who is afraid of snakes like I am may have a problem with those few scenes as well. The Missing is a western, and I don’t usually like westerns. I don’t usually go see them, but this one looked interesting to me. The plot was similar to one or two other movies I have seen, but there were some differences and I still enjoyed it.
There was some violence in different scenes of The Missing. The group of men that took Lily attacked others after she was taken. People were killed. Some of the murders were shown. Others weren’t shown, but the dead bodies were. Some of the bodies weren’t pleasant to see. Those things could be upsetting to some viewers. There were some fights at different times in the movie. Some characters used guns, and others used arrows or even hatchets. Some people could be upset by those scenes. Lily had to endure a lot after she was taken, including a horrible beating and an attempted rape. Those things weren’t easy to watch. I don’t remember hearing any swearing in the movie. This was a serious movie, but there were a few funny things in the movie. Later in the movie, Sam explained what his Indian name meant. It was funny, and did lighten the mood for a few minutes.
Maggie was having a relationship with Brake in The Missing. He worked for her on the ranch. His actual room was in the barn, and he stayed there if anyone else was around, like he did when Sam spent the night in the barn. Brake did come and go from the house as he wanted though. It seemed to be normal for him to eat dinner with Maggie and her daughters. Lily spotted a few things that seemed to clue her in that something else was going on. On nights when no one else was around, Brake would come back in to visit Maggie in her room. She didn’t want her daughters to see him come back in or know that he spent the nights in her room. There weren’t any sex scenes showed between Maggie and Brake, but it was implied that he spent the night in her room once. The two did kiss. Later in the movie, Lily was almost raped. Maggie also said a few things to Sam that seemed to imply that she had been raped at one point as well. There wasn’t any nudity in the movie, though a little bit of bare skin was shown.
I thought that the acting in The Missing was really good. I have liked Tommy Lee Jones for a long time. I think this was one of his better performances. He was really believable as Sam. He had a few very powerful and emotional scenes. Cate Blanchett was wonderful in her role of Maggie as well. I have seen her in several movies and I have never been disappointed by her performance. She is very talented. Maggie was different from any of the other roles I’ve seen her in, but she was still believable in the part. Evan Rachel Wood wasn’t in as much of the movie, but she was good as Lily. She played one of the daughters in Practical Magic when she was younger. I thought that Jenna Boyd, the young actress who played Dot was good in her part as well. She wasn’t whiney and annoying like some child actors can be. Aaron Eckhart wasn’t in much of this movie, but he was fine in his part. I think he was in more of The Missing than he was in Nurse Betty. Brake was a nicer character than the one he played in Nurse Betty. Val Kilmer showed up briefly as the Lieutenant that wouldn’t go with Maggie after the men who took Lily. I had no idea he was in this movie before I saw it, and he looked different because of the beard he had.
CHARACTERS
Maggie Gilkeson - She was a single mother raising her two daughters in New Mexico. Maggie did work as a healer and she owned a ranch. She was a very independent woman. She seemed content with her life. She was still upset about how her mother died, and she blamed her father for leaving them.
Lily - Maggie’s oldest daughter. Lily wasn’t happy with her life. She didn’t like living on the ranch. She wanted something different for her life. She wanted to move to a town. She wore frilly clothes even when she was doing work around the ranch. She was whiney at times, but she seemed to get stronger after she was kidnaped. She did do a few stupid things though.
Dot - Maggie’s youngest daughter. Dot liked living on the ranch and helping her mother treat people. She didn’t understand why her sister was so unhappy there. Dot was more of a tomboy. She seemed glad that Maggie’s father came to see them, and liked the idea that she might be part Indian.
Samuel Jones - Maggie’s father. He left his wife and children many years before, when Maggie was very young. He lived with Indians after he left his family. He returned to see Maggie and wanted to give her money. He helped Maggie try to find Lily after the kidnaping. Sam was able to track the men and all the women they took. Sam had his own reasons for coming back when he did, but he did his best to help Maggie.
I did enjoy The Missing. It was entertaining and there were a few surprises in it. Fans of Tommy Lee Jones and Cate Blanchett should definitely see this movie. I think I would have enjoyed the movie more if the couple that sat in the row behind me would have stopped talking.
The Oscar -winning team of Ron Howard and Brian Grazer (2001, A Beautiful Mind, Best Director, BestPicture) present a riveting, spine-tingling thrille...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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