For starters, the pacing and structure of the film is poor, and the film never seems sure of what it wants to be. Cate Blanchett plays Maggie Gilkeson, a hardened single mother of two young girls and a medicine woman trying to scratch out an existence in the unforgiving virgin West. After a visit from her repentant father Samuel (Tommy Lee Jones), who abandoned his family and "went Indian," the film mounts up on its unsurprisingly linear path. Maggie's two daughters head to town herding cattle with the two male farm hands, but all that returns is a horse with an empty saddle. Maggie rides out in search of the missing party, only to discover her farm hands slaughtered with her lover stuffed into a cattle skin and slowly smoking over a low fire, her oldest daughter missing and her youngest daughter still alive but distraught. This sequence in the woods must make up about 90 percent of the trailer, but it is not psychologically terrifying, merely gruesome. Maggie's plea for help to the ineffectual local authorities fails, and so she is forced to turn to the help of her father.
Jones's Samuel is the bright spot in an otherwise dull film. As a "white man" who abandoned his family for another life with the Apache Indians, he is complex and charismatic. Samuel has been a "moving spirit" his whole life, not even settling down entirely with the Apache he fled to. So he enters the story on the path to redemption and agrees to track the girls to Mexico, where he has determined they are being led to be sold into slavery. Jones is a master of the quiet, subdued moment, and he has plenty of these around the fire after a night of pursuit-a pursuit that is drawn out and seems almost lazy in nature. Samuel's Indian spirituality is intriguing juxtaposed with Maggie's hard-line Christianity, and these elements climax in a scene where the Brujah-a vampire-curses one of the searchers.
The cinematography is at times very beautiful, as Howard pans out to place as wide an eye on the New Mexico landscape as possible, but these scenes tend to feel more like the efforts of a novice in the Western genre dabbling in unfamiliar conventions. The editing and camera choices during the action sequences are terrible, and the action seems more confusing than exiting. My main criticism of the film, however, is that it suggests so much but ultimately delivers so little. There are early scenes in town that document the inevitable expansion of civilization with all its faults and bureaucracy. These scenes provide context for Samuel's choice of lifestyle, but they are never explored. During a confrontation with Samuel, the Brujah tells him his soul is conflicted, and that he will make him a 'real Indian.' Instead, he just blows a shot of ebene up his nostrils and throws him down a hill. The characters are static, clear-cut and the gray areas of their natures are always expository background.
The Brujah himself, although gruesome looking, isn't at all scary, especially with regards to the type of "scary" the film is advertising. He treats his captives masochistically, sure, but he is usually seen in uninspired, well-lit, daytime settings. The final showdown between Samuel and the Brujah is extremely anticlimactic if you enjoyed, as I did, the slow buildup of Samuel as a spiritual opposition to the Brujah's evil. The film's linear rescue plot isn't enough to keep an audience engaged during this too-long movie, and much of what happens along the path feels like filler. Howard has a made it a recent habit to release his films near the close of the year for Oscar contention, but I will be amazed if "The Missing" sniffs out a single category. Save your money and your expectations and catch this confused Western on video.