The Missing

Revolutions Studios and Image Entertainment presents A Brain Grazer production

Starring: Kate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones and Evan Rachel Wood and Aaron Eckhart

Directed by: Ron Howard

Rating: *****

Plot: A nice quiet family living out in the middle of no where lives a plain real life. Where Blanchett's character is a doctor and her oldest daughter wishes for a life in the city. A visitor rattles their lives as we find out this man is Blanchett's character's father who she hates a whole damn lot for leaving her when she was little. Sadly for her she needs his help once her oldest daughter is kid napped. The hunt begins.

Acting: Let me just say this one hell of a collection of actors here. Each one of them great to the last scene. I've always loved Blanchett in everything she's done. Even her small role in the LOTR films. She is real in this film. So down to earth I could really see her living in a time period like that. Now we all know she is good and we all know Tommy Lee Jones is good. This man just knows how to make good cat and mouse movies. The Fugitive of course stands out as a good one but the underrated The Hunted I thought was just great. Here Jones turns in another great performance as a man with a troubled past but kicks a lot of ass to make up for it. Now we know those two are good but Evan Rachel Wood from the film Thirteen is in this as the daughter who gets kid napped. She is just brilliant as an actress. She will be ignored for awards because of her age but I love this woman as an actress for how she picks her roles. In Thirteen she is not exactly the most loved character. Here she plays an uptight girl who you feel for, but she makes stupid mistakes and you get mad at the character. It takes some guts to keep playing roles like that. Eckhart is in this too he's good but he just needs to find a stable role as a leading man, and The Core does not count.

Directing/Writing: Ron Howard is goooooooooood, and I mean like really good at what he does. a Beautiful Mind is one of my favorite movies and this one is real close. Now most of this movie is just a long chase sequence but it is one amazing ride. The tension you go through and the emotions you experience is just staggering in this film. Now the bad guys in this movie are Indians, which takes some guts to do in a movie now a days I haft to admit. The history is very solid and very real. No slap ass "Don't hurt anyone's feelings" type of history, this is real. The action was also very real and effective. When people are shooting at each other both sides miss, it is not that easy to shoot a gun. Now in James Bond films 007 can unload a clip from an AK-47 and kill 100 people. Here it shows you how hard it would be to fight twelve guys and all you have is a shot gun. All of this just made for some of the most tense action sequences I have ever seen.

Overall: A powerful film with such a style and tension to it I hope it is mentioned through the award season. Simply an epic story with powerful meanings and yes as I have mentioned before, some kick ass action sequences.