In Nineteenth Century New Mexico, Maggie Gilkeson (Cate Blanchett) is a lonely rancher and healer, living alone with her two daughters, the teenager Lily Gilkeson (Evan Rachel Wood) and the ten years old girl Dot Gilkeson (Jenna Boyd),and her assistant and lover Brake Baldwin (Aaron Eckhart) and the employee Emiliano (Sergio Calderón). When her absent father Samuel Jones (Tommy Lee Jones),of whom Maggie feels grief for leaving her when she was a child, visits the Gilkeson's family, Lily is kidnapped with other local women by a group of rebel apaches to be sold as slave in Mexico. The Indians, leaded by "el brujo" (the witch) Pesh-Chidin (Eric Schweig),kill Brake and Emiliano, and Maggie, having no other person to support her beyond the young Dot in the search for Lily, asks her father to track the captives. The weird trio follows the kidnappers, being the beginning of a spectacular low paced story. "The Missing" is a magnificent contemporary western, having a great plot with drama, mysticism, action and thriller. The characters are slowly developed in a very consistent way, and have outstanding performances of Cate Blanchett (as usual),Tommy Lee Jones and the starlet Jenna Boyd. The locations are stunning, and the soundtrack is very powerful. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Desaparecidas" ("Missing")

I'm typically not a fan of Westerns - being female may have something to do with it. But I liked this one. It has a good story, along with superb character development that causes you to care what's going on in the film.

The most stand out aspect for me was the villain played by Eric Schweig. He totally creeped me out. I looked up his IMDb photos and he looks nothing like he did in the film - so the makeup department had a lot to do with making his face as ugly as they did. It really adds to the evil nature of this man.

Jones is quite convincing as a white man wanting to be Indian. His face looks so aged and weathered - you believe he has lived out in the harsh western wilderness all his life. I'm a big fan of his and could watch him do his thing all day.

The director and writers did a good job of creating tension and suspense in the film. There are numerous fight and chase scenes that had me on the edge of my seat. There is quite a bit of explicit violence so this isn't one for young kids to watch.

I think the movie weaves a good tale of hardship, tragedy, failings, forgiveness and redemption. The title, I think, refers to not only her daughter that is missing - I think it refers to several themes missing in the life of Cate Blanchett's character. First, there is the missing dad that abandoned her. There's the missing trust of men in general since she apparently was the victim of rape - and that subsequently resulted in the birth of her daughter. There are also the fathers of her daughter's who are no where to be seen - so that her daughters are having to grow up without a dad as well. No husband either (just a live-in boyfriend). She is totally alone and has to fend for herself and her girls. Blanchett does a great job of bringing the steeliness of her character to life.

Without giving away what happens, I found the ending very touching.

I wasn't sure whether I wanted to see The Missing, after hearing so many negative things about it. That said, part of me knew I should see it because the cast were of such high calibre. After finally watching The Missing, I actually thought it was a good movie with a great cast. I can see why some may dislike it, while the story has a great idea and is very gripping the changes in focus(western, than mystery thriller then a mystical theme introduced) become all too frequent and convoluted. The ending seemed rather tired and stretched too, while the last thirty minutes or so weren't as interesting as the rest of the film. However, it is a visually captivating movie, very well photographed and striking in the scenery. The music score is also powerful and the script is generally good and the mysticism was interesting to watch and had an intriguing angle to it. The cast are great, Cate Blanchett gives meat to her character and gives another strong account of herself, and Tommy Lee Jones looks the part and is suitably commanding. Of the support cast, although Evan Rachel Wood is good, Eric Schwieg's genuinely frightening villain gets top honours here. Overall, a great cast but for me the movie was just good, several impressive things but some area for improvement too. 7/10 Bethany Cox