Two nights ago my wife rented THE MISSINg directed by Ron Howard and starring Tommy Lee Jones and Kate Blanchet (and Val Kilmer fro about 7 minutes......I guess his career is not going in the right direction..). I really enjoyed the film even tough it was disturbig at times. While it took place in a Wild West type of setting it really is more a thriller then your average Western

The whole time I keept thinking of French-Belgian western comics like Lt.Blueberry and Deribs Buddy Longway....and even the Italian special edition TEX book by Joe Kubert did.
The whole tapestry of weaving together Native Ameican supernatural elements and very good character interaction and gave me that kind of Euro-Western comicbook vibes that really used to scare me as a wee lad.

Has anyone else here seen this film and agrees or thinks I am just tottaly wrong???

Why is it that when someone starts taking smaller, interesting roles, the masses assume that "the career's not going well?"

From what I've read, he's been producing stuff, doing some directing, and taking smaller roles that interest him more. Sounds like he's just reached that stage of his career where he can afford to diversify and stretch his wings a little.

I wonder what people said about him when True Romance came out? That was such a small role that he was unnoticed as "Val Kilmer."

Sure, maybe I am jumping to conclutions but don't YOU think it is quite interesting that Kilmer was in that film for less then 10 minutes???

Depends on the role, really. Was he right for that 10 minutes? Was he "Val Kilmer" or did he dissapear into the role? Was there more footage of his performance that got cut for any one of a number of reasons?

Hey, perhaps he is on the downslide. Maybe he wanted to fund a smaller project. I don't know. I'm not particularly interested in how much screentime an actor has when weighed against how well the overall presentation is.

Acctually I do wonder if there was more footage that got cut.
He really did not do much with the role at all, a very bland preformance. Kind of cool to see him again though.