Seraphim Falls
|
List Price: Our Price: $5.99 You Save: $9.00 (60%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $1.14 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of Seraphim Falls
Movie Review: From hard and gritty to mythical and allegorical
Summary: 4 Stars
A film of two halves, but with a somewhat uncomfortable join.
This movie starts off with one of the most gritty and riveting hunts in recent memory. Pierce Brosnan's weatherbeaten and hardened ex Union officer is the hunted one, and Liam Neeson is the hunter, driven remorselessly by the ghosts of his past. The cold of the mountains, the pain of using a knife to gouge out a bullet and cauterize the wound, the chill of the water, the close quarters kills with the knife, all make for a visceral start with minimal dialogue and little explanation. Each man is completely single minded - one on survival, and one on revenge. As the chase moves onto the plains, we discover more about their past and the reason for the chase, marking a change in tone of the movie. As the plains give way to the desert, the movie takes an altogether more mythical and almost surreal mood, which is sure to divide audiences. Those expecting an action packed climax to the chase may feel cheated, however what we do get is at the very least thought provoking and I think lingers in the memory much more than a conventional showdown would have.
The director borrows heavily from the greats - the revenge themes of many a spaghetti Western, with the repeated flashbacks revealing a little more each time we see them reminiscent of Leone, also Ford's `The Searchers', as well as the atmosphere of Eastwood's Westerns. Borrowed the styles may be, but they are put together with a unique voice and vision, albeit in a somewhat hollow way in which the director too often substitutes myth and images for true drama. But what startling images they are! The photography is beautiful, whether it is the stark beauty of the mountains and snow, or the green of the plains or the arid expanses of the desert, and the images of the men facing off, or Angelica Huston in the desert, will stick with you.
The musical score to the movie is surprisingly restrained, but is a perfect accompaniment to the story - at first minimalist and somber in minor keys, reflecting the movies tone of survival and single mindedness, then the score switches to something more traditional as it enters the plains and the sphere of a traditional Western, and finally becomes wistful and dreamlike in the final stages. It's imaginative and subtle, always in the background and never grabbing your attention, but adding immensely to the tone and feel of the movie, almost like another character.
It is the final third of the movie which feels just a little longer than it should, with some ideas dragged out, and with changes of tone which leave the viewer almost feeling like he is being asked to start a new movie. What helps keep the viewer hooked are the leads, who are terrific, the two Irishman fitting into a Western with great assurance. Brosnan in particular makes the most of a very physical role, with much more subtlety than we might expect. Otherwise, a strong supporting cast of character actors is great to watch but frankly is given little of substance to do.
This is a flawed film, to be sure - but nonetheless it achieves what great cinema is supposed to - it stirs the emotions, and makes you think. Recommended.
Movie Review: Good, but not great, addition to Western canon.
Summary: 4 Stars
Cowboy pictures, horse operas, shoot 'em ups - whatever you prefer to label them there is no denying they make for compelling cinema. I've long been an ardent enthusiast of them, as it's difficult not to be if you enjoy beautiful cinematography, engaging characters, and plenty of insight into the truly dark, cold recesses of human nature.
From the genre's very inception, the 1903 film aptly named "The Great Train Robbery, to the excellent 2007 remake of "3:10 to Yuma, there have been thousands of threads in the tapestry we know as the western. One of the more recent entries is "Seraphim Falls", a thematically poor but cinematically brilliant revenge film. With Liam Neeson and Pierce Brosnan as the two leads (as the Carver the hunter and Gideon the hunted respectively), you already know you're in for some great acting.
Despite having a moderately paced and quite exciting opening hour to the film, the plot begins to crumble amidst a barrage of derivative scenes and simply ridiculous actions. Brosnan's character emerging from within the carcass of a horse to surprise his adversaries has got to be one of the more absurd "Hollywoodisms" I've witnessed this year.
There is a scene, which was probably one of the more expensive to film, which succintly details what Gideon did in his past to spark such ire within Carver. It only serves to deflate the mystery surrounding their feud and comes as a huge disappointment. The fascination you're filled with during the beginning of the film turns into the pedestrian "you killed my family, now I must kill you" deal. The film would have been much more powerful and intriguing had they opted to leave any sort of explanation out.
Further, the appearance of Angelica Huston at the end of the film may be a bit too bizarre and surreal for some, as she is evidently intended to be symbolic of the devil. After her dealings with Neeson and Brosnan, in which she trades items with them, the climax is rendered effectively unavailing due to the hackneyed "you kill me" "no, you kill ME" conclusion.
All told, however, I enjoyed this film and it held my attention 'till the bitter finale. A worthy rental choice, and for classicist Western fans, a definite addition to your personal cinema library.
Dialogue 6/10
The speech is sparse and rough, much as it should be, but some lines are nausea-inducing with their empty machismo. An example being: "You can't protect anyone in this life, son, the sooner you get that the better." spoken by Carver.
Cinematography 8/10
This is perhaps the finest aspect of the film, as it's beautifully framed and diligently shot. Though it is a little jarring how the landscape suddently changes from snowy to barren in mid-chase.
Acting 9/10
Neeson and Brosnan are both first-rate actors, and perform brilliantly despite a couple of scenes guaranteed to make you roll your eyes (most notably the "horse carcass ambush" scene).
Movie Review: Seraphim Falls
Summary: 4 Stars
Watching Seraphim Falls I'm almost glad that two of the best westerns of the past years were underplayed. Seraphim Falls fits well with the somewhat pretensious but well done The Proposition in being a hard core driven film that reinvigorated the western genre for me. Every so often the western genre seems to flucuate between good films like these or the generic audience pleasing pap like Young Guns or American Outlaws. If thats what the genre could wind up being I'm glad that once every so often a filmmaker makes something like these films.
Seraphim Falls is a story of revenge centering around the pursuit of a former civil war soldier, Gideon by Carver and his group of bountyhunters. In the begining we're not given much to the characters just thrust into the chase between the men with Gideon slowly whittling down Carvers men using anything at his means. There are questions perhaps to if it would be easy to drop a knife dead center between a mans head, or hollow out a horse to hide in but these are minor questions that don't effect the chase. Slowly we come to recognize how much Carver is willing to do in order to kill Gideon who's just as eager at killing to survive. In the end it comes down to Gideons past transgressions that lead Carver on his path of vengeance and what will happen to the men if they can't become more than the violent beings they are.
That sounds rather corny but thats something interesting about the film. Both Gideon and Carver while being portrayed as vicious don't really fit into that villianous archetype. They're deeply flawed men involved in this chase across the American west. In the lines of the film as they're the only ones who come across with any real depth which is good. There are great character actors playing the periphary characters ranging from Ed Lauter to Michael Wincott. But both Liam Neeson and Pierce Brosnan control the screen with their driven performances as the two leads.
This is the first film from David Von Anken, a director I noticed from an episode of The Shield and he does good with the direction not overdoing the film, giving the it a natural feel that makes the action fascinating. And the cinematography from John Toll a great photographer is excellent focusing on beautifully on the landscape.
If the film has a problem its the ending. Its not a bad one, just somewhat more metaphysical than I'd like it to be. It involves characters who seemingly appear out of thin air to offer odd advice and bullets. I won't say no more other than it might put people off to the film. Personally I liked it more than most of the bigger action films I've seen this year, and see it as an easy recommendation.
Movie Review: A Really Great Western/Frontier Movie Let Down By A Slightly Odd Ending
Summary: 4 Stars
Both Pierce Brosnan and Liam Neeson have been putting in superb performances in their last few movies, and the first pairing of them in "Seraphim Falls" is proof that both are now genuine class acts - only getting better with age and skill. Brosnan is a revelation in Seraphim Falls (as he was in 'The Matador') just as Neeson was in 'Batman Returns', 'Kingdom Of Heaven', and especially his Oscar-winning turn in 'Kinsey'. In their latter years, each has acquired a grizzly realism that is serving them both well and their choices in movies.
The story is fairly simple - two ex Civil War Sergeants are locked into a Frontier manhunt in 1863 - the manhunt takes them from the snowy mountain ranges, down through freezing rivers and into open pilgrim-filled ranges, through homesteads and finally to a desert area that in many ways resembles both of them - arid, empty, drained and dry. Brosnan is the hunted and Neeson the pursuer, but we only find out as the movie slowly moves on, `why' Neeson is so obsessed with hunting Brosnan's character Gideon - and not just killing him either - but making him bleed and hurt as much as possible. It's essentially a cowboy chase movie, but done with such style and intelligence, that it grips you for the first hour like a Terminator that just won't stop. The support cast are all uniformly excellent too, but it's the two leads that hold it together.
The cinematography is spectacular and the look and dialogue given to both leads, just right. It's let down though as some reviewers have rightly pointed out by an odd last twenty minutes that in many ways spoils the great journey you just made with these two essentially good men locked into the horrible aftermath of war.
Very old fashioned in ways, but hugely enjoyable - I'm reminded of "Jeremiah Johnson" from 1971 with Robert Redford and "Black Robe" from 1991 by director Bruce Beresford ("Tender Mercies" and "Breaker Morant") - two fantastic frontier `story' films that are rarely seen, but worth every second of your time seeking them out.
Having sat through some truly appalling films of late, "Seraphim Falls" was like a breath of fresh air to me - and I wish I'd seen it at the movies. Recommended.
Movie Review: Vintage Vengeance in a Revitalized Western
Summary: 4 Stars
`Seraphim Falls' has all the elements of the archetypal Western you'd expect. If the movie didn't have any expletives and it weren't so keenly edited, you'd swear you were watching an old movie.
Taking place just after The Civil War, Confederate Col. Carver (Liam Neeson) has an ax to grind against his former rival, Union Officer Gideon (Pierce Brosnan). Taking a few men with him, he bears down on Gideon chasing him in the dead of winter through the unforgiving mountainous terrain of the West. With transgressions that only unfold later, the two men fiercely hold their own in a chase that both sides win on the merits of ingenuity alone. Encountering people one might expect: A log cabin family, Irish immigrants, an elixir saleswoman, and revival people; the results, nevertheless, are not.
One particularly distinctive scene shows Gideon frozen, bleeding, and out of breath. A departure from vintage Westerns, we really see his ordeal as he numbly, yet urgently builds a fire, removes a bullet, and cauterizes a wound that only leaves a trail of blood. It's done so believably that we can't help but feel his agony.
With great performances by both Neeson and Brosnan, 'Seraphim Falls' is one compelling Western ride. The palpable vengeance is convincing, and the chase brings considerable tension throughout. Even containing familiar elements, the variations are often done in a startlingly different way.