Movie Review
Fire missing from Ron Howard's Western

By Moira Macdonald
Seattle Times movie critic

	ELI REED In "The Missing," Tommy Lee Jones, left, is taciturn to a fault, but Cate Blanchett is well-cast as a pioneer woman.
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It makes sense that Ron Howard, among the most pleasantly old-fashioned of current Hollywood filmmakers, would want to get his hands on a Western, that iconic genre that's been ailing for decades but never dies. But "The Missing," based on a Thomas Eidson novel called "The Last Ride," never quite sparks, despite some fine performances.

A slight awkwardness pervades the film; Howard, who's usually sure with tone, has trouble finding its rhythm. In our first view of star Cate Blanchett, she's seated in an outhouse — is this meant to be funny? Realistic? Daring, in an innocent sort of way? Hard to say; it's just odd.

Ultimately, it's not at all clear why Howard wanted to tell this particular story (though it clearly owes a debt to John Ford's 1956 classic "The Searchers"). Set in 1885 New Mexico, "The Missing" focuses on a single mother, Maggie (Blanchett), who must reluctantly seek the help of her estranged father (Tommy Lee Jones). They're on a horseback mission to find her teenage daughter (rising star Evan Rachel Wood, of "Thirteen"), who's been kidnapped by a renegade gang led by a snake-wielding Native American shaman (Eric Schweig, growly-voiced and pockmarked). (Press materials for "The Missing" are careful to point out that the gang is multiracial, which we can certainly see for ourselves; perhaps an indication of some discomfort with the material.)

Movie review Showtimes and trailer **½ "The Missing," with Tommy Lee Jones, Cate Blanchett, Eric Schweig, Evan Rachel Wood, Jenna Boyd, Aaron Eckhart. Directed by Ron Howard, from a screenplay by Ken Kaufman, based on the novel "The Last Ride" by Thomas Eidson. 130 minutes. Rated R for violence. Several theaters.

Maggie, we're told, is a "good Christian woman" who supports her two girls by working as a healer (in an early scene, she expertly pulls out an old woman's tooth like it's a weed in her garden). When her father, Jones, returns, her blue eyes grow cold. "He ran off," she explains to her companion (Aaron Eckhart) — abandoning his wife and children 20 years ago to live with the Apache. This, in a nutshell, is the movie: It's not so much about the kidnapping, but about the re-forming of a family, scattered both by choice and by tragedy.

The always-watchable Blanchett — who's rapidly becoming the new Meryl Streep, as far as spot-on accents go — is well-cast as Maggie; she has the kind of raw-boned beauty and plainspoken quality that perfectly suits a pioneer woman, and she looks very much at home on a horse. (When Blanchett splits kindling, you really believe she's splitting kindling, rather than just looking at it intently as some actresses might.) But Jones, ever-taciturn, can't seem to connect with her, or anyone else in the cast; his performance feels rote, as if he's acting alone.

"The Missing" occasionally blooms into beauty, thanks to the unearthly light found by cinematographer Salvatore Totino in the New Mexico hills, and Howard finally catches some suspense in the late chase scenes, as the horses clamber in the dust. But despite the actors' hard work (particularly Blanchett), the whole experience ultimately has a careful blandness to it, and the family-unity theme is hit with the subtlety of a hundred hammers. Howard seems to be directing with kid gloves on, when bare, dusty hands are what's needed.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com

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