Seraphim Falls (2007)

Best movie ever!

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Okay, it's rated "R" for a reason. It's violent and bloody and cruel, with dreadful deaths and incredible random senseless cruelty.I get that. It's "real life." But there is so *much* of this nonstop cruelty and violence and just stupid people being cruel and awful and violent.What a dreadful waste of talented actors. We expected better of Pierce Brosnan and Liam Neeson, among others. And we expected more of a movie that was filmed in such spectacular natural beauty.Alas, it was not to be. We watched for about 15 minutes and then decided we'd had enough of the general stupid violence. The movie went to the trash.

Allegorical Western, its Message Siding with a Greuling Chase among the Earth's rugged Natural Environment from the Top to the Bottom, or as the Film would more than Metaphorically Display, from Heaven to Hell, with the "Fallen Angels".The First Two Acts are Typical of Old Time in the Genre, Featuring Closed Mouth Types Speaking in Short Cynical Sentences. Showing the kind of Men who Could Survive on God's Not So Green Earth. There's the Snow and the Desert, Two Extremities on Terra-Ferma that are Not Inhabitable for the Weak and the Unprepared.Pierce Brosnan and Liam Neeson are the Fallen One's and the Film is Ambiguous about that for quite a While, but in the End there are No Easy Answers, No Saints, just Sinners. As the Film Fades Out it is as Simple as "Vengeance is Mine Sayeth the Lord".Reluctantly Admitting the Gorgeous Cinematography and Fine Acting, some have taken Quite an Offense that the Mystical Intruding is too Heavy Handed, going Against the Classic Western Tradition.The Modern and Postmodern Western has Evolved with the Likes of Mann, Boetticher, Leone, and Peckinpah. If You Prefer John Wayne, John Ford, Howard Hawks and the like, that's Fine. But, the Influences here are the aforementioned.

The name of the movie only starts to make sense past mid-point of the movie. Here we can see two men battling in a quest for revenge (a little misplaced, or not ?!?), after the end of the American Civil War.An allegory between heaven and hell – the beginning and the end of the movie, com be seen in the sets, portrayed by high winterly mountains and a scorching desert where the action unravels.In between, the hunter is losing its men, either by the hand or the hunted, or by greed - the perspective of easer money that the quest at hand. The last of the sidekicks, in a very good performance by Michael Wincott, get taken out by the ugly face the revenge at a hands grasp.We can see two great actors – Pierce Brosnan and Liam Neeson, portraying two soldiers, hardened by war and hardship, making their way into an ending which turns out to be a little weak, where we can see that the men aren't so hardened. Cowboys and soldiers also have good and just hearts.A final note to Angelica Houston playing a saleswoman, in the middle of the desert (??!!) trading with both men the means to make the revenge possible with justice (equal rights). Is she a representation for the devil itself? I think so ..., in a little twisted and just way.It's a very good movie with great landscapes and very worthwhile example of the long lost western.

The ambiguity of the characters is what made the film interesting for me. We don't find out until nearly the end about what really happened at Seraphim Falls, so any attempt at pigeon-holing Gideon (Pierce Brosnan) or Carver (Liam Neeson) as the 'bad guy' just doesn't work, even though both reveal aspects of themselves that verge on being outside the law. We know Gideon is extremely clever at eluding his pursuers, and it takes an iron will and stamina to suffer the physical abuse of the hunt. Carver on the face of it seems like the evil hunter, constantly reminding his posse that he will not fulfill his part of the bargain if they don't stay until the mission is accomplished. The revelation of the Seraphim Falls incident temporarily exonerates Gideon's role in that tragic event, nevertheless he recognizes his responsibility for what happened while in charge of his company. The sense of loss that accompanies both men is given additional resonance as each man is gradually stripped of his material possessions during the story, until both men are left to face their mortality with not a single thing left in the world. One is left with a sense that under other circumstances, these men might have been friends.