When a vicious crew of slave-trading Indians makes off with her teenage daughter the only person who can help is Maggie is her estranged father Jones (Lee Jones).

An expert tracker after "goin' Injun" with the Apaches for 20 years, he knows how to handle a Winchester Repeater and even sports some natty hair extensions.

The trouble is Maggie (Blanchett) is distrustful of the man who rode out on the family decades before and is only showing up now with a show of remorse.

However, when the US cavalry set off in the wrong direction, she has to swallow her pride and hook up with a dad who doesn't even know his granddaughter's name.

What follows is a tense and often gripping game of cat and mouse across the stunning desert scenery of America's old south west.

Ron Howard is a supremely competent rather than inspired film-maker; he knows how to tell a story and this falls into the category of an undemanding night out.

Actors the calibre of Blancett and Lee Jones are never emotionally pushed in their respective roles of absentee father and grafting mum dispensing basic healing and chopping logs.

It's left up to villain-in-chief Pesh Chidin (Schweig) to provide the most dramatic presence, resembling an escapee from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

A deeply disturbing figure, he's most at home dripping venom from rattlesnakes hung from branches onto a cockerel's talon before slicing the throat of his victims.

He leads the disparate bunch of Apache white slave traders (there are also a couple of white cowboys in the mix for political correctness's sake).

Owing a debut of no small measure to John Wayne's The Searchers, this is a far more brutal affair than the 1956 classic.

An overlong running time of two hours plus is punctuated by decent action, particularly a gruelling scene where a hapless photographer is blinded by the vengeful Schweig.

Alternatively thrilling or just plain daft - check out the Indian black magic mumbo-jumbo - at least there's something for everyone.

Tim Evans