"The Missing" is greatly different from any other film Ron Howard has made. And not just because it's one of only a handful of R-rated features he's directed over his career.

It's also one of the most brutally violent films in recent memory — and not just by Howard's usually family-friendly standards. There's a real level of malice and nastiness that hangs over this watchable but somewhat inconsistent Western.

At times the film feels a little half-hearted, which would seem to indicate Howard wasn't fully committed to it. And the film's depiction of American Indian characters is at least a little insensitive and sensational.

That said, however, there's no denying the strength of the film's performances, especially Cate Blanchett as Maggie Gilkeson, a rancher and frontier doctor in 19th-century New Mexico. She's trying to raise two daughters, the haughty Lilly (Evan Rachel Wood) and less high-maintenance Dot (Jenna Boyd).

It's not easy. And it gets even harder when Lilly is kidnapped by American Indians who intend to sell the teen to a Mexican slave ring. With both the local sheriff and the military seemingly uninterested in her plight, Maggie's options are few. So she turns to her estranged father (Tommy Lee Jones), who abandoned Maggie and her mother to "go native" years before. But they'll have to put aside hard feelings if they're to succeed.

Though some of the content is questionable — especially the whole "brujo," or American Indian witch, subplot — the film is well-paced. And Howard does a nice job of keeping us in suspense about what's going to happen next.

Mainly, however, it is Blanchett and Jones who make the film worthwhile. While Jones' character is basically another riff on the same role he's been playing since "The Fugitive," he manages to give it some new nuances. And the hostility between his and Blanchett's characters is very believable.

"The Missing" is rated R for graphic scenes of violence (gunplay, fisticuffs, bludgeonings, stabbings and violence against women), gore, brief drug content (use of crude anesthetics), scattered use of strong profanity and some crude slang terms and brief partial male nudity. Running time: 130 minutes.

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E-MAIL: jeff@desnews.com