Seraphim Falls: a Western revenge tale that we've all seen before

It's what I think of as the Curse of Oscar -- get an Academy Award, or at least close to it, and your career tanks as an actor or actress. While there are some actors who can rise above the fray, I've noticed more often than not, suddenly there's just a long line of sub-standard films in the future and a gradual slide into oblivion and the B-list.

Such was the case when I sat down tonight to watch a recent film that featured several very good actors and actresses all of whom have been tapped over the years as serious players in their profession. And while the film was a Western, a genre that I can generally well miss, well, I was game since I did like the talent.

A man, rather grimy around the edges, is alone in a forested mountainside, roasting a rabbit and making a fire for the night. While he's alone, he also looks pretty confident in what he is doing. But suddenly he's being attacked, by a posse of five men, led by a grim-faced, no-nonsense sort who is determined to take him alive so that he can met out his own form of justice.

The hunted is Gideon (Pierce Brosnan), who has his own form of what is right and wrong, and while he's pretty good at self-surgery to get rid of a bullet in his arm, we also get to see that he's not completely immune to pain. But he's also a killer as we get to see, with various clever dispatches with knives, traps, and assorted knocking about.

Carver (Liam Neeson) is the leader of the posse, determined to do whatever it takes to get his hands on Gideon. Over and over he warns the men with him to only take out 'extremities,' and that they won't get a dime from him if Gideon is killed. He wants that particular pleasure for himself.

The first half of the film is taken up with various acts of violence, what with Gideon getting shot, falling down a mountainside and into an icy creek and going over a waterfall, then taking refuge with an isolated family and trying to outwit the pursuit. Along the way, there's plenty of nasty work going on, such as violence against children (including threats of murder and rape), pistol whipping, then into the desert Southwest and various brutal sorts that Gideon encounters along the way.

After watching the posse vanish one by one, we come to the inevitable showdown between Gideon and Carver, with an extensive flashback explaining why Carver wants him dead. It seems that a raid during the Civil War took something very precious away from Carver, and while only some of the fault lies with Gideon, he's not completely clean either.

In fact, all that Gideon wants is to be left alone, and to his credit, he doesn't kill unless he's attacked first. Call it self defense if you like. On the other hand, it's also clear that he's a man with a death wish. So the question becomes who will live and who will die, and how.

I do have to say that the killing does get pretty creative in this. It's also a very graphic film, so it does deserve that hard R rating. While nothing is really lingered over, it does get pretty disgusting at times, and I was repulsed by several scenes in the film.

It's not that interesting of a film, unless you're into Westerns as a rule, and even with the high level of talent, it's not worth the two hours that it takes to sit through this clunker. The dialog is cliched, the plot so standard that you could fall asleep through part of it and not miss a beat. That's too bad.

Only two supporting actors give this any life. Anjelica Huston plays a sly, crafty snake-oil dealer that they meet in the desert. Wes Studie steals his scenes as a sort of Coyote character by a watering hole. Those ten minutes, if that much, are about the only times that the film gets at all interesting, and take a strange sort of existential twist to the story. The only other part that gets interesting is the use of on-location shooting in the New Mexico desert and the Oregon mountains for the opening sequences.

The DVD version has a few extras, such as subtitles in English, French and Spanish. There is an audio commentary by the director, David Von Ancken, and the leads that can be switched on or off. A 'behind the scenes' featurette is included along with various previews for other films.

Sadly, despite the fact that there are some very good actors in here, this is such an awful film that I am not at all surprised that this went straight to video. It's an awful film, and if this is what the various actors, Neeson, Brosnan and all are being reduced to, it's a pretty sad time for filmmaking.

Two stars and a hearty thumbs down from me.

Not recommended.