Klondike (2014)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

The first must-see film of the year.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

I typically love historical epics, and I'm fascinated about stories of the West and gold rushes etc. However, "Klondike" blew it in so many ways, I'm not sure I can enumerate them all.The camera work, scenery and set design was marvellous, and definitely needs acknowledging. The rest? Well it was great to see Robb Stark again, and he comes out unscathed. The remainder of the characters are cardboard cutouts and I felt no sympathy for them, good or bad. Tim Roth was embarrassing.The plot was simple enough, but was cut to shreds by jumping around here and there, which makes me think the editor should never work in Hollywood again.I could go on, but, you get the point, I'm sure. I don't normally write critical reviews, so the fact that I'm doing so means this was missing it all, really wide of the mark. Mediocre - 5/10.

I am not always a stickler about things being "to the book," but when it comes to history, accuracy is important. 1). Where are their belongings? The brutality of hiking the Chilkoot was the requirement to have 2000 pounds of goods, per person + enough supplies to build a boat at Bennet Lake, unless frozen at which point one needed a sled. 2). Soapy Smith never set foot on the Chilkoot Trail, let alone was he ever in Dawson City. He was shot to death in Skagway by Frank Reid. That would have made a great part of this story, had they developed the storyline in Skagway. They could have included Molly Walsh - as well as showing the camps at Canyon City and Sheep Camp to demonstrate how long it took these people to haul 2000 lbs per person to each camp (several trips back and forth). 3). The great Avalanche disaster happened on April 3, not at the end of June. The graveyard at Dyea is quite profound, considering how far away it is from the site of the actual disaster. The least the writers could have done was used the correct date. 4). Though the Pass was difficult, it was the lowest pass, cut through the mountains with a lake on the other side. In this show, they have them climbing up some mountain edge, in an endless mountain range that makes it seem as though these people were mountain climbers. In fact, they were entrepreneurs who chose the easiest route, so the film makers could have focused more on the hardships these people really did suffer, such as sever chafing, frost bite, horses who literally jumped from the cliffs, etc. 5). What about the scales? That was the neatest aspect of the trail. Once everyone got to the scales, if they had more than 2000 lbs, they immediately started throwing stuff away, right on the mountain. Today, it is an interesting garbage dump! Sad that the writers missed just about every aspect of the trail that was significant, important and perfect for great storytelling. Some reviewers have said it was too short and I agree. Someone should make a mini- series out of Pierre Burtons "Klondike" because that was a compelling story.

Folks, you see a number of reviews angry or frustrated with the tale because of its inaccuracies. Yes, that is true. I've read Bill Haskell's book, and he did not travel to the Yukon with a guy named Epstein. First Haskell went to Chicago and could not find good work. That's when he found himself in Colorado looking for some mining prospects. He traveled from Colorado with Joe Meeker after they met working some gold fields there. The entire story about how Bill Haskell met Joe Meeker in Dawson is pure fantasy. The gambling Epstein story is completely fabricated by writers. Bill Haskell was educated in a Massachusetts Academy from age 15 off the Vermont farm (sent by his farming father with high aspirations). After this, he denied college and Haskell worked in a Boston dry goods store. He was bored and wanted to travel west. He made it to Colorado and overheard some guys talking at a table in a restaurant. He inquired and they offered to sell him claims in a Colorado creek area. He couldn't afford a claim, but went to find those fields and met Joe Meeker there. The idea they travel to the Yukon was Joe Meeker's, not Bill's. Bill had $800 dollars saved up and between them, about $1700 total. Joe Meeker had been to the Yukon before. These were tough men, who put together a provision of 3500 lbs in San Francisco, and then traveled to Alaska, walking and surviving in brutal conditions. Bill Haskell got to Dawson before it was Dawson and he was good friends with Joe Ladue who developed the town. Bill Haskell worked for a cabin builder in Circle City for a while, after he split from Joe Meeker who stayed behind to mine in (if memory serves me right) Circle City. Haskell rode (worked on) a steamer up into the arctic circle and wrote about Eskimo hunters and other interesting sights he behold while up there. Once Bill Haskell got to Dawson, he worked in the lumber mill, built a cabin, and staked a claim on the creek...after Claim #60 down (stream) and stayed there through the winter because of all the stories he was hearing about gold finds up there. He had the claim, but wasn't convinced there was gold and had figured it was all bloated stories of fortune. The first summer and fall 1896, Haskell was actually in the "wood business" in Dawson. Joe joined him later, but Bill had another partner at the claim through the winter and it wasn't Joe Meeker, it was Joe Ladue. Haskell and his lumber yard/real estate selling partner made it rich off that claim. Before they got rich, he spent his days baking bread and helping with the claim. It wasn't until later in the summer, that they hit pay dirt. They kept those $40,000 coffee cans full of gold quiet and then they left town and went home after two years in the Klondike. Most of the gold collected up there by the miners was housed in a warehouse through the winter and went out with the steamboats in the summer months. Belinda actually married the "count", who is depicted in Klondike as an English bad guy. He was actually French and was a barber who claimed fame and royalty once he made it to Dawson. Belinda lost her first fortune to him and divorced after traveling to Paris. The divorce didn't happen until 1906, after he had kidnapped one of her kin and a bunch of lawsuits ensued over assets. She eventually made another fortune in the banking business, retired, and moved to Yakima. She died in a nursing home in Seattle in 1967 at 95 years old. She had sold her orchard and mansion in Yakima when her fortune ran out. SHE's the one with the Orchard, not Bill Haskell. Bill was noted in the Dawson town log in 1901 after he had returned, and was never heard from again. That part is true. And another truth is Joe Meeker falling through the ice and drifting down a fast river, ever recovered. Bill had left the Yukon after Joe Meeker's death. Haskell made a fortune in his claim after the brutal first Dawson winter. The Indians we saw in the miniseries was just nonsense dreamed up by the writers again. Most of the Indians either worked as pack/guides or did nothing at all, but survive. Anyway... we will never know the full story, but it was indeed fun to watch Klondike with all its Hollywood B.S. But what do you expect? The real story is so complicated and filled with real brutal harsh life, that the normal soft American audience wouldn't watch it. For what Klondike is, (a nice western), I enjoyed watching and really liked the music. I think if the writers did some real research on Bill Haskell's stories and accounts of his time in the Klondike, they could have come up with something really neat. As a published fiction author myself, I'm considering such a story.

Possible Spoiler (s)...Was looking forward to it, if fact glad that another "reality channel" was dipping into the mini-series market such as History with the Hatfields and McCoys. More disappointed in this than the aforementioned. While the H&M on History was over-melodramatic and flirting with silly, it was still riotously entertaining and the performances by the cast were from very good to superb. Most of the cast in Klondike seem to be on lithium. H&M did a great job in developing characters, using every chance they were on screen to expose their motivations, flaws, strengths, and did it through dialogue and interaction with other characters-- even gestures. In Klondike this very important facet of storytelling is handled by one-line descriptions or a pat phrase. The pacing of Klondike is another issue, break neck for twenty minutes and snailish for forty. Tim Roth-- who is soooooo underutilized they could have put a cardboard Tim Roth mask on a mannequin and wheeled him around-- is the resident thug/soulless usurper, but in watching the show you have to wonder if he's not behaving that way out of simple boredom. He seems to bore the hell out of whoever he's threatening, anyway. The business woman (so uninteresting her name escapes me) is also victim to the writing. What drives her? What brought her to Dawson City? Mom died in childbirth? Well if that don't make ya wanna head to the boonies and sell booze, what would? Al Swearingen she ain't. The hooker? Drop me with a preacher and the turnaround is miraculous. Again, couldn't she have fared better as a gal-fer-rent in San Francisco or New York? One would think you have to be pretty motivated to peddle your virtue if you're going to go through all that trouble to find a whorehouse with the Help Wanted sign...? Her transition from saloon trollop to Florence Nightengale strains belief. Richard Madden is serviceable-- again a victim of the script-- but comes nowhere near the performance he gave us in Game of Thrones. Sam Shepard is the only cast member who seems to be trying to inject a little life into his character, but again the limits of the script seem to hogtie him.I won't go into the RCMP or the Natives, but they also fall victim to cliché.The camera work is a delight. The setting spectacular. The mud looks real. Otherwise, an overall disappointment.