The Missing (2003)
Directed by Ron Howard
When rancher and single mother of two Maggie Gilkeson sees her teenage daughter, Lily, kidnapped by Apache rebels, she reluctantly accepts the help of her estranged father, Samuel, in tracking down the kidnappers. Along the way, the two must learn to reconcile the past and work together if they are going to have any hope of getting Lily back before she is taken over the border and forced to become a prostitute.
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What critics compared The Missing to
He’s certainly included adult themes into films like Night Shift, Ransom and The Missing before (though I can’t honestly remember what was objectionable about those R-rated films).
Even operating at only half power, Howard has produced work more watchable than that of most directors, nothing-to-sneeze-at entertainments such as Night Shift , Parenthood , The Paper (which foreshadowed the current print journalism crisis) and The Missing .
Fully conceding that Frost/Nixon is the exception that proves the rule, it’s been 12 years since A Beautiful Mind (wildly overrated); other than riffing on established genres, what worth do The Missing, Cinderella Man, The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons and The Dilemma really possess?
Howard has made some smart adult pictures, including "Frost/Nixon" and the perennially underappreciated western "The Missing," but that touch has eluded him here.
As for Rush, it stands alongside the likes of Howard's The Dilemma and The Missing.
As the usual plot beats are hit — honing her skills, proving her worth in tricky situations, warming to Steve, assembling a gang ( The Missing ’s Saïd Taghmaoui, T2 Trainspotting ’s Ewen Bremner and Hell on Wheels ’ Eugene Brave Rock), tussling with bureaucracy (David Thewlis, Fargo ), battling against formidable foes in the form of German General Ludendorff (Danny Huston, Frankenstein ) and the poison gas-creating Doctor Maru (Elena Anaya, The Infiltrator ), and eventually facing off in a climactic showdown — the formula favoured in establishing most caped crusaders and their ilk remains evident, but a change of mood and focus makes a remarkable difference within its largely muddy, gloom-streaked frames.