:: Sunday, November 30, 2003 ::

"The Missing" is not as good a western as Kevin Cosner's latest, "Open Range". Where "Range", like "Dances With Wolves", opts for epic sweep and universal characters, Ron Howard's latest, which I give 6 or 10 on the Mikometer, is a straight ahead story detailing the efforts of a frontier doctor (Cate Blanchett) and her tracker father (Tommy Lee Jones, in a role that fits him too much like an old glove) to find her missing daughter, who has been kidnapped by a white slaver. In an earlier time when there were lots of westerns on the filmic horizon, this would have been a "standard oater", but since westerns are few and far between these days, and since I love the genre, I was waiting for this one. The film is better directed than the usual Howard piece. I liked it better than "Beautiful Mind". But this isn't a classic in any sense.
:: Michael Nyiri 5:00 PM Leave a Comment on this Post ::
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