For the first 100 minutes or so, Seraphim Falls is a great movie. Its story of two men driven by the awesome powers of revenge and survival could be favorably ranked alongside Unforgiven as one of the best modern Westerns. In its last quarter hour, though, this film takes a perplexing turn into inappropriate fantasy and ham handed metaphysics that'll leave you wondering what the hell is going on.
In the aftermath of the Civil War, a man named Gideon (Pierce Brosnan) has sought refuge from the world in the cold remoteness of a Western mountain range. His solitude is split by the bullet that slices into his shoulder one morning. A man named Carver (Liam Neeson) and his hired posse have come into the mountains to kill Gideon. Well, Carver is there to kill him as he makes it clear that no one else is to take Gideon's life. Through willpower and suffering, Gideon is able to flee from Carver and his men. He leads them down from the mountains, through the prairies and into the bleakness of the desert. Carver's relentless drive is more than matched by Gideon's deadly brilliance as he slowly whittles away at Carver's posse until only the two are left to face each other in an inferno of their own hate and self-hate. If you want to know the wrong that ties them together and how it is resolved, you'll have to watch the movie.
Seraphim Falls plunges you right into the story without explaining who is who, what is what or why is why. Though the answers do come, the first hour of the film has to rest of the performances of Pierce Brosnan and Liam Neeson. Gideon is like a Wild West Odysseus, capable of the most extraordinary tricks, while Carver is as unyielding as the bitter cold of the mountains, the rush of the raging river and the searing heat of the desert. You won't know which of them is the good guy and which is the bad, only that both are capable of the most terrible things. Without a lot of dialog, Brosnan creates a man who is not just physically but spiritually running away from something. Neeson makes Carver more than just a pursuer. He's a man who's already left everything behind in life and himself but the pursuit.
These filmmakers take such powerful lead actors and surround them with both lesser men and greater surroundings. Wounded and harassed by Carver, Gideon must also conquer the enormous challenges of nature. He's often stranded in the most trying of circumstances with only his determination and guile to see him through. With Carver, it is his encounters with his fellow human beings that illuminate his character. From the reasonable fear, greed and foolishness of his posse to the basic decency of a mountain family to the rough and tumble of the men in a railroad camp, the contrast shows Carver to be a man who's transcended such normal impulses or desires.
Seraphim Falls also offers loads of gorgeous scenery, sharply sparse dialog and an uncompromising look at the dirt and savagery of the untamed frontier. And then we get to that ending .
I don't want to give to much away because even with such a bewildering and blatantly mannered conclusion, this is still a film very much worth seeing. Let me put it this way. Imagine watching The Wizard of Oz and having Freddy Krueger show up at the end and rape Dorothy. That's what Seraphim Falls is like. And it's not simply a bizarre shift in tone. The story then spins off of that to a climax that, while morally admirable, is dramatically and thematically contradictory to every other thing that happens in the movie. If the stark weirdness had led to an ending that seemed appropriate to the story, you could forgive that. If they'd avoided the strangeness and built to the counterintuitive finish in a realistic fashion, you could accept that. What we get instead is a whiplash that feels like the filmmakers are either chickening out or cheating the audience of the story they deserve.
I don't think I've ever recommended another film that finished as weakly and poorly as this one. That I still strongly encourage you to seek out and watch Seraphim Falls should say a lot about how everything but the ending is tremendous.
In the aftermath of the Civil War, a man named Gideon (Pierce Brosnan) has sought refuge from the world in the cold remoteness of a Western mountain range. His solitude is split by the bullet that slices into his shoulder one morning. A man named Carver (Liam Neeson) and his hired posse have come into the mountains to kill Gideon. Well, Carver is there to kill him as he makes it clear that no one else is to take Gideon's life. Through willpower and suffering, Gideon is able to flee from Carver and his men. He leads them down from the mountains, through the prairies and into the bleakness of the desert. Carver's relentless drive is more than matched by Gideon's deadly brilliance as he slowly whittles away at Carver's posse until only the two are left to face each other in an inferno of their own hate and self-hate. If you want to know the wrong that ties them together and how it is resolved, you'll have to watch the movie.
Seraphim Falls plunges you right into the story without explaining who is who, what is what or why is why. Though the answers do come, the first hour of the film has to rest of the performances of Pierce Brosnan and Liam Neeson. Gideon is like a Wild West Odysseus, capable of the most extraordinary tricks, while Carver is as unyielding as the bitter cold of the mountains, the rush of the raging river and the searing heat of the desert. You won't know which of them is the good guy and which is the bad, only that both are capable of the most terrible things. Without a lot of dialog, Brosnan creates a man who is not just physically but spiritually running away from something. Neeson makes Carver more than just a pursuer. He's a man who's already left everything behind in life and himself but the pursuit.
These filmmakers take such powerful lead actors and surround them with both lesser men and greater surroundings. Wounded and harassed by Carver, Gideon must also conquer the enormous challenges of nature. He's often stranded in the most trying of circumstances with only his determination and guile to see him through. With Carver, it is his encounters with his fellow human beings that illuminate his character. From the reasonable fear, greed and foolishness of his posse to the basic decency of a mountain family to the rough and tumble of the men in a railroad camp, the contrast shows Carver to be a man who's transcended such normal impulses or desires.
Seraphim Falls also offers loads of gorgeous scenery, sharply sparse dialog and an uncompromising look at the dirt and savagery of the untamed frontier. And then we get to that ending .
I don't want to give to much away because even with such a bewildering and blatantly mannered conclusion, this is still a film very much worth seeing. Let me put it this way. Imagine watching The Wizard of Oz and having Freddy Krueger show up at the end and rape Dorothy. That's what Seraphim Falls is like. And it's not simply a bizarre shift in tone. The story then spins off of that to a climax that, while morally admirable, is dramatically and thematically contradictory to every other thing that happens in the movie. If the stark weirdness had led to an ending that seemed appropriate to the story, you could forgive that. If they'd avoided the strangeness and built to the counterintuitive finish in a realistic fashion, you could accept that. What we get instead is a whiplash that feels like the filmmakers are either chickening out or cheating the audience of the story they deserve.
I don't think I've ever recommended another film that finished as weakly and poorly as this one. That I still strongly encourage you to seek out and watch Seraphim Falls should say a lot about how everything but the ending is tremendous.