The Missing, a Ron Howard film, was a very predictable movie. But I'm getting ahead of myself. so let me start from the beginning. It begins with us learning about the basic characters: There's the daughter Dot, who's independent and serves solely to get into trouble (Jenna Boyd); and her mother's hired helper at the farm (Aaron Eckhart) who she - the strong, female lead character, Maggie Gilkeson (Cate Blanchett) - has an affair with, but doesn't want the town folk to get the wrong idea; The weak daughter (Evan Rachel Wood); and lastly the Indian father who left his daughter (Tommy Lee Jones), but will most certainly redeem himself by the end of the show, probably by death.
Now, to really shake things up they killed Aaron Eckhart's character, and have the weak daughter kidnapped. After discovering this Cate Blanchett goes to the police. But, sadly, they are already doing something else and, besides, aren't as smart as her father (Tommy Lee Jones) who is skilled at finding a trail.
She finds him and tells him the sad story. Let's check the odds, shall we. We have a woman, a young daughter, and an aging Indian against a band of skilled young Indians with a talented witch doctor. It really is looking very good. Sure, we'll run into some trouble, someone will die, but all in all it shouldn't turn out too bad.
Continuing our story we find that the water has almost killed everyone. I minor matter at worst. Our heroes are moving in on the enemy. We are set up for the death of Mr. Jones by learning that he once loved his daughter and honestly wanted to help out to make up for his passed misgivings. Plus, the mom has caught something from the witch doctor that cursed her hair after finding her hairbrush. She foolishly refused to wear a necklace that would keep away curses. The only reason they haven't succeeded yet is because Dot fulfilled her purpose in this movie. She goofed up the mission. Oops.
Tommy Lee Jones gets beat up quite badly. He goes back and orchestrates a perfect plan. Behold, it works! They have to run away while opening fire. Pops has a heart to heart with his daughter before he dies. They all live. Thus ending our textbook case of the average, and as I've mentioned utterly predictable, western.
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