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Order this DVD from Amazon.com
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The Missing
Widescreen Special Edition
(Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment)
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| DVD Release Date:
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February 24, 2004
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| Length:
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137 mins.
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| Rated:
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R
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| Format:
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Anamorphic Widescreen (2.40:1)
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| Audio:
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English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, French Dolby Surround
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| Subtitles:
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Subtitles: English, French, Captions: English
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| Extras:
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The Short Films of Ron Howard, Three Alternate Endings, 11 Deleted Scenes, 11 Behind-the-Scenes Featurettes, Outtakes, Photo Galleries, Trailers
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In The Missing, Cate Blanchett stars as Maggie Gilkeson, a single mother living on a New Mexico ranch with her two daughters, Lily (Evan Rachel Wood) and Dot (Jenna Boyd). One ill-fated day, Maggie's boyfriend Brake (Aaron Eckhart) takes the girls into town and on their way back to the ranch, through the desolate trails of New Mexico, the group is sabatoged by a ruthless pack of evil-doers, led by a demonic Apache Indian known as Chidin (Eric Schweig). Lily is kidnapped with the intention of being sold to Mexican slave traders and Maggie becomes desperate to save her beloved daughter. She is forced to seek the help of her estranged father Samuel (Tommy Lee Jones), a man with whom she hasn't spoken since childhood. The Missing is the story of a mother's courageous search for her kidnapped daughter and her struggle to overlook her acrimonious relationship with her so-called father.
The Missing is now available on a 2-disc DVD set, with the first DVD containing the movie, 11 trailers and an advertisement for The Missing soundtrack (one of the trailers is Spider-Man 2!!) and the second DVD being chalk-full of extras.
First amongst the extras are eleven deleted scenes. Several scenes from those eleven cut ones are actually quite decent and quite long (I liked the mountain lion scene) but considering the movie's almost 2 1/2 hour running length, it is quite understandable that something had to be cut somewhere.
Next up are the outtakes. There are about eight outtakes and nothing really out of the ordinary here, except we get to hear Blanchett drop an f-bomb (but in a humourous way).
The next special feature is the alternate endings. There are three alternate endings. One is almost 8 minutes long, the second is just over 12 minutes and the final alternate ending is just over 11 minutes long. There is no major twist or turn in any of these endings, just some minor tweaking of a few issues here and a few issues there. The endings are all okay but I think they made a wise choice with the ending that was used in the actual movie.
The next section in the Special Features is the Featurettes. There are five featurettes in total. They are titled "The Last Ride - The Story of The Missing" (5 1/2 minutes); "New Frontiers - Making The Missing" (29 minutes); "The Modern Western Score" (5 minutes); "Casting The Missing" (15 1/2 minutes); and "Apache Language School" (5 1/2 minutes). All of the features are quite decent and are, for the most part, commentated by director Ron Howard, with interviews from many of the major behind-the-scenes players in the film and pretty much all the main cast. I liked all the featurettes. They are all well-made and worth the time spent watching them. One interesting note from the featurettes - Cate Blanchett says she got along with Tommy Lee Jones wonderfully but they barely spoke to each other off the set. Interesting. Tommy Lee Jones seems like a really serious type of guy who might be a bit uptight but he came off really well in all the featurettes in which he appeared. I really enjoyed Cate Blanchett in the featurettes.
Next is a section called "Ron Howard On...". Here we have six short features with Ron Howard giving us his thoughts on home movies, John Wayne, editing, the filmmaking process, his love for westerns and conventions of westerns. It is a total of about 18 minutes of Ron Howard's thoughts and is fairly interesting. For example, did you know Ron Howard acted in a movie with John Wayne? I bet you didn't and if you did know that, you know waaay too much about movies. Also included in this section are three home movies that Ron Howard made as a child. Yes, as a child. They are titled "The Deed of Daring Do", "Cards, Cads, Guns, Gord and Death..." and "Old Paint". They are by no means masterpieces but pretty decent little films for such a young child. And even more impressive is the fact they have now made it to DVD! Anyways, there' s not a whole lot of anything too special here, just some mild amusement and an interesting look at R.W. Howard's (as he preferred to call himself) childhood antics.
Finally, the DVD contains photo galleries, with pictures of the cast, the production and the locations.
Overall, I will say that The Missing is a good movie. It is not great and I am not surprised it was not noticed during Oscar time, but it is still a good Western that is quite an emotional roller-coaster ride. The acting is excellent - in particular Cate Blanchett, Tommy Lee Jones, Jenna Boyd and Eric Schweig are all outstanding. I was disappointed Cate Blanchett didn't get some kind of recognition for her performance in this movie or in her other movie during last year, Veronica Guerin. I can assure you that her performance in both of these movies was much better that Diane Keaton in Something's Gotta Give. But I'm not a member of the Academy, so what the hell do I know. The DVD is filled with a plethora of extras. If you are a fan of Ron Howard, put this DVD on your must-get list because Howard has a lot to say in all the features. He is quite interesting to listen to, although there is no commentary on this DVD (which is perfectly fine by me). Nevertheless, The Missing is a very good investment and if you are wary of buying it, it is a very, very safe rental.
| The Movie: |
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7/10 |
| The Extras: |
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7/10 |
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