SERAPHIM FALLS Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Samuel Goldwyn Films
Grade: B
Directed by: David Von Ancken
Written By: David Von Ancken, Abby Everett Jaques
Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Liam Neeson, Anjelica Huston, Michael Wincott, Ed Lauter, Robert Baker, John Robinson, Kevin J. O’Connor, Tom Noonan
Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 1/16/07
Opens: January 26, 2007 New Mexico calls itself the Land of Enchantment, but it wasn’t always that way. Just watch Gideon (Pierce Brosnan) and Carver (Liam Neeson) slog their way through extremes of temperature in the southwestern state. Gideon, freezing in twenty below with a bullet in his shoulder, tries to start a fire to help him extricate the lead from his body, then later limps along the territory’s blazing hot desert, bereft of water and horse, ready at last to call it quits with his arch enemy, Carver less than an hour away. As though confronting a mirage, the two even meet up with a woman (Anjelica Huston) in a horse-drawn carriage, far too well-dressed for the weather, ready to trade a bottle of snake oil and a pair of bullets for a treasure that to a human being in less dire straits would be a fool’s barter. Talk about the surreal! “Seraphim Falls” is a genre Western, but not the kind ground out during the forties and fifties that had decimated white units facing the savage redskins, all but defeated until the blasts of the bugle signaled the arrival of the cavalry. David von Ancken’s thoughtful horse opera is more like a two-man piece that recalls “High Noon”’s showdown of ex-Marshall Will Kane and the man he put in prison, Frank Miller, the latter determined to obtain revenge while the fearful townspeople abandoned the lawman to meet the criminal at twelve o’clock sharp. The difference in Von Ancken’s picture, which the director co-scripted with Abby Everett Jaques, is that this time there are no heroes. While the audience may root first for one fellow, then maybe for the other when we catch the reason for the chip on his shoulder, what this movie is about is that President Bush’s reactionary politics notwithstanding, the America immediately following the Civil War (if not during the ante-bellum days at that) was an individualistic era, an every-dude-for-himself time. No cry-babies allowed, no suing McDonald’s when you spill some Joe on your lap, no running to the mayor when you sniff secondary smoke while slicing into a wedge of apple pie in Pete’s Tavern. Exquisitely photographed by John Toll, “Seraphim Falls” is shot in several locations within a climatically diversified New Mexico, with an opening scene of dashing Oregon waterfalls. Gideon, a loner enjoying a snow-capped day in the woods, receives an unwelcome bullet in the shoulder, which he extricates most painfully with a broad knife, cauterizing the wound after sterilizing the area with a flask of liquor. (We almost expect him to say, “Do I look like I give a damn whether I care if it’s shaken or stirred?”) From then, “Seraphim Falls” becomes a chase movie, as Gideon is pursued relentlessly by Carver and four gunmen Carver regularly reminds of their duty to produce a dead body if they want to be paid. Of course ultimately, the struggle will be between just the two men, as Carver’s assistants will be picked off, but the fun erupts each time the men run into an experience, including participation with a religious group, then with Chinese railroad builders, Irish supervisors, a family of pioneers in a log cabin, some fearsome bank robbers, and an Indian trader. Pierce Brosnan looks terrific bearded in a role that stretches his prodigious talent, diametrically opposed to anything resembling a city slicker, as handy with a knife as he had been with a gun in his 007 roles. Liam Neeson, gaunt as though hungry for revenge, somehow never gained my sympathy despite having good reason for seeking justice. If New Mexico, freezing, boiling, conducive to hallucinations and near-death experiences, does not look like your idea of a vacation, never fear: the tourist board can capitalize on thrill seekers–the sorts of big spenders who like reality trips that come close to putting their lives in danger. As for me, I’ll stick to the Hyatt Regency Albuquerque and a side trip five miles to the Sandia Shadows Vineyard. Rated R. 115 minutes 2007 by Harvey Karten
harveycritic@cs.com Member: NY Film Critics Online | 
