Saturday, December 17, 2011

Seraphim Falls

Seraphim Falls (2007) starts as a straightforward revenge narrative and ends with confrontations with Charon and the devil. This is a very interesting film, one of the weirdest westerns I've ever seen, and one worth re-watching. It's the first feature film of David Von Ancken and stars Liam Neeson and Pierce Brosnan as the central characters. Charon is played by Wes Studi, who was wonderful as Leaphorn in the mystery series. Anjelica Huston is Lucifer. The Husband, poor thing, just wants to watch Christmas movies and found it too gory. The Younger Son and I are quite taken by it.

trailer:


Slant Magazine says the film
proves to be something in short supply these days: a sturdy, straight-ahead, less-talk, more-action Western.
DVD Talk likes it and asks,
how often do you get to see Pierce Brosnan and Liam Neeson engaged in an old-school revenge-drenched mega-chase that runs from the top of a frozen mountain to a godforsaken desert that looks like hell's favorite landscape?
and concludes that it
works because of a straight-arrow narrative, a pair of fine performances, a bunch of colorful characters tucked into the background, and a whole lot of really beautiful scenery

2 comments:

  1. But was the waterfall worth seeing? I mean, the waterfall made Last of the Mohicians, didn't it?

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  2. there was a waterfall towards the beginning of this film, and when i said to the younger son, "if that's the falls in the title, this'll be a very short flick," he just looked at me. parental humor is under-appreciated around here.

    the plummet over the waterfall won the stuntman an award, or so i read somewhere. it involved the stuntman being cabled to a helicopter and then being dropped into the falls.

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