The Missing (2003)
Western Thriller Adventure
Rated R for violence and disturbing
images (I would recommend minimum viewing age 16)
This one is about family. As mamaw said to her gandson J.D. in the film Hillbilly Elegy:
“Family’s the only thing that means a ...damn. You’ll learn that.”
Set in New Mexico 1885 Tommy Lee Jones (Samuel) stars as
the estranged father of prairie doctor Maggie played by Cate Blanchett. She has two daughters trying to make a living
in this isolated wilderness. Samuel abandoned his family 20-years earlier to
live with the Apache. After a rattlesnake bite, a medicine man tells him that
he must reunite with his family to save his life. Maggie hates her father &
rejects him initially upon his return.
Shortly thereafter the older daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) in her teens is
kidnapped by a brujo named Chidin. Horribly, Chidin kills anyone who gets in his
way or who tries to save the girls. Chidin, superstitious himself, thinks he needs exactly 8 pretty girls before he can proceed
to the Mexican border. His business is to sell the girls so he threatens
his minions not to abuse the women or else. The
law and Army cannot help in time, so Maggie is forced to enlist the help of her estranged
father (Samuel) to track down the kidnappers. And the adventure begins. Father and daughter must deal with their past as
they pursue the future. Just as we all
must do. This is an intense view to say
the least. This film reminded me of an older film starring John Wayne ‘The Searchers’ (1956).
Chidin is evil incarnate. This is an emotional rollercoaster of a film
and made me thankful to be safe in my home with all my modern conveniences and
in a relatively safe country. This snippet in time shows the struggles of this
one family. Today the toys people play
with have changed, but human nature has not changed one bit. Sex trafficking still exists and is far more
rampant in 2020 than it was in 1885.
Suffering of the kind in the movie still exists today with real people
dying every day crossing the border attempting to find a better life in the USA
illegally. I can only imagine the internal
struggle of people who are willing to send children by themselves on long
journeys with strangers in hope of a better life. This movie is a great picture
of the human struggle to survive and fight back evil for one more day. Sometimes good wins and many times it loses,
but we must never stop striving for good.
Being a light & salt in a dark bitter world especially for family.
If not them, then who.
There is one law that no one may break
‘the law of the harvest’ meaning we reap what we sow. Some call it Karma and others payback but its
all the same.
The old system under the law of Moses was
only a shadow, a dim preview of the good things to come, not the good things
themselves. The sacrifices under that system were repeated again and again,
year after year, but they were never able to provide perfect cleansing for
those who came to worship. If they could have
provided perfect cleansing, the sacrifices would have stopped, for the
worshipers would have been purified once for all time, and their feelings of
guilt would have disappeared. But instead, those
sacrifices actually reminded them of their sins year after year. For
it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. That
is why, when Christ came into the world, he said to God, “You did not want
animal sacrifices or sin offerings. But you have given me a body to
offer. You were not pleased with burnt offerings or other offerings for sin. Then I said, ‘Look, I
have come to do your will, O God—as is written about me in the Scriptures.’” First,
Christ said, “You did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings or burnt
offerings or other offerings for sin, nor were you pleased with them” (though
they are required by the law of Moses). Then he said, “Look, I have come
to do your will.” He cancels the first covenant in order to put the second into
effect. For God’s will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the
body of Jesus Christ, once for all time.
Under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar
day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never
take away sins. But our High Priest offered
himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then he sat
down in the place of honor at God’s right hand. There he waits until his
enemies are humbled and made a footstool under his feet. For by that one
offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy. And the Holy Spirit also testifies that this
is so. For he says, “This is the new covenant I will make with my people on
that day, says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.” Then he says, “I will never again remember their
sins and lawless deeds.” And when sins
have been forgiven, there is no need to offer any more sacrifices.
And so, dear brothers and sisters, we
can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. By
his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the
Most Holy Place. And since we have a great High Priest
who rules over God’s house, let us go right into the
presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty
consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our
bodies have been washed with pure water.
Let us hold tightly without wavering to
the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Let us
think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And
let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one
another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.
Dear friends, if we deliberately continue
sinning after we have received knowledge of the truth, there is no longer any
sacrifice that will cover these sins. There is only the terrible
expectation of God’s judgment and the raging fire that will consume his
enemies. For anyone who refused to obey the law of
Moses was put to death without mercy on the testimony of two or three
witnesses. Just think how much worse the punishment will
be for those who have trampled on the Son of God, and have treated the blood of
the covenant, which made us holy, as if it were common and unholy, and have
insulted and disdained the Holy Spirit who brings God’s mercy to us. For
we know the one who said, “I will take revenge. I will pay them back.”
He also said, “The Lord will judge his own people.”
It is a terrible thing to fall
into the hands of the living God. Think back on those early days when you first
learned about Christ. Remember how you remained faithful even though it
meant terrible suffering. Sometimes you were exposed to
public ridicule and were beaten, and sometimes you helped others who were
suffering the same things. You suffered along with those
who were thrown into jail, and when all you owned was taken from you, you
accepted it with joy. You knew there were better things waiting for you that
will last forever.
So do not throw away this confident trust
in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you! Patient
endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will.
Then you will receive all that he has promised.
“For in just a little while, the Coming One will come and not delay. And
my righteous ones will live by faith. But I will take no pleasure in anyone who
turns away.”
But we are not like those who turn away
from God to their own destruction. We are the faithful ones, whose souls will
be saved.
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