The Claim

Rating:
Summary: Inner emptiness in a cold place
Review: "There's no pleasure in it. A man loses heart"

Such is the admonition about gold that a weary prospector, after pouring a bag of nuggets out onto the table, gives young Daniel Dillon, newly arrived in the snowbound Sierra Nevada range during the California gold rush. Despite this less than encouraging counsel, Dillon trades for the miner's claim something most men would consider too dear to barter. Now, almost two decades later in 1868, Daniel's mine has spawned a town, Kingdom Come, and Dillon (Peter Mullan) is the benevolent despot that rules the settlement and everyone in it. Again, it's winter, and there's nothing for the prospectors to do but drink, gamble, carouse in the local brothel, and await the verdict of the Central Pacific survey party out to determine if the transcontinental trains will pass through KC. It's not too much of an exaggeration to say that the town will die if the railroad bypasses the community.

Wes Bentley plays Donald Dalglish, the rakish young engineer who leads the survey team. He's arrived in town escorting two ladies, recently widowed Elena (Nastassja Kinski) and Hope (Sarah Polley). Elena is dying of tuberculosis, and Hope is her teenaged daughter. It soon becomes apparent that the two women share a past with Dillon, who dumps Lucia, his significant other and the owner of the brothel, and invites Elena and Hope to move into his Victorian mansion. In the meantime, between frolics with the workin' gals, Dalglish becomes smitten with Hope.

The connection between Dillon, Elena and Hope is revealed early on. The plot is not so much concerned with who these characters are, but rather with the culmination of the morality play that began years before when Dillon ignored sound advice - a finale intensified to a sharp point by the Central Pacific's eventual verdict and Elena's illness.

I was somewhat confounded that I didn't like this movie more for it's indeed a richly photographed period piece. For me, the characters of Dillon and Dalglish just didn't click. Neither one was portrayed by the screenwriters to be either particularly endearing or hateful to the audience. Both are just regular guys, each a blend of both good and flawed traits, and therefore too nondescript to carry the weight of being the male leads. The Elena and Hope characters, while crucial to the storyline, were little more than indispensable props.

Actually, the most interesting part of the film for me - and I'm saying this without a smirk, really! - was the portrayal of the bordello. The film doesn't judge or glamorize the girls or the business they work at, which is to provide lonely men with emergency love and separate them from their money and gold in the process. And the film doesn't make the working conditions any more miserable than might be expected in any shantytown place in the snowed-under Sierras of the 1860s. There's one scene where the house manager yells a reminder through the door to one of her staff, "Be sure and collect his money - you aren't giving it away for free!" Hmmph! That's what my wife shouts after me as I drive off to my 9 to 5 every morning.

Rating:
Summary: Modern-day Western
Review: "The Claim" is ostensibly an interpretation of British author Thomas Hardy's ("Jude the Obscure," "Tess of the D'Urbervilles") novel "Mayor of Casterbridge". But where the film succeeds is not as a literary adaptation, but as a modern-day Western.

Daniel Dillon (the terrific up-and-coming Scottish actor Peter Mullan)runs the western town of Kingdom Come with an iron fist and a kind of frontier justice. Not only is he the law, but he in fact owns the town. Coming to own the town, however, means that he sacrificed his wife and child many years earlier (this is told in flashback).

Now that wife and child have returned to town to exact a price from Dillon--his former wife (Natassja Kinski, who is quite good) and child, Hope (Sarah Polley, so good in "Sweet Hereafter") need money so that his wife can live out the remainder of her days comfortably.

Without revealing too much of the plot, Hope soon becomes entangled with a railroad surveyor, Dalglish (Wes Bentley of "American Beauty") who will determine the fate and future of Kingdom Come by telling the government where to put the railroad.

Along for the ride is Milla Jovovich ("Fifth Element"), the clear weak link of the cast, who plays Dillon's mistress and the owner of the town brothel.

The movie is an interesting character study, and while it has its slow moments, explores several classic Western themes: love, money, greed and revenge. Recommended for lovers of arthouse films and those intrigued by modern Westerns.

Rating:
Summary: Don't be swayed by these people...
Review: ..."The Claim" is a moving, visually stunning movie about loss and a man seeking redemption he'll never find. I don't believe a movie needs explosions to keep the term "boring" at bay. This movie deals with emotions and its characters. Having said that, you also get to see the stunning, mind-blowing image of a house being MOVED THROUGH THE SNOW-COVERED COUNTRYSIDE. The movie also features deathbed scenes, love affairs, death, gunplay, Milla singing a song (!). Nothing boring about this movie. And here's the best part: the cast, as the Amazon reviewer noted, is simply amazing. Wes Bentley and Sarah Polley give the best performances of their short careers (these two will be the young actors that stick around, win a bunch of Oscars, and have careers like De Niro and Streep). Anyone not looking for homogenized Hollywood... -- car crashes and buildings blowing up and tough-guy hokum -- check out this flick. You won't be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: powerful and passionate
Review: a great cast makes this work. Michael Winterbottom directs another powerful and passionate film alongside his earlier film Jude with Kate Winslet and Christopher Eccelston. Nastassja Kinski and Sarah Polley come to a small town where a long secret will reveal. Peter Mullan is the man in charge of the town and the secret reflects on him. Wes Bently is the man who is going to build a railroad across the country connecting into the middle and Milla Jovovich plays a prositute. wonderfully acted and dramatic. the part where Kinski dies I cryed like a baby because they killed something beauticul

Rating:
Summary: The Claim
Review: A local reviewer begged us to see this movie and was she ever correct. We found this movie to be both physically and emotionally shattering. Acting, photography, sound, sets draw the viewer into the lives of the major actors to a shattering level.

See it in a theatre for the full impact.

Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Thomas Hardy? Not even Oliver Hardy!
Review: After two hours of watching it, I still don't know what it was about. Yes, the scenery is fantastic, but a National Geographic film would have done more.

I applaud the acting of Milla Jovovich, and Nastassja Kinski. But, the kudos reviewers have given to Peter Mullen would have been better deserved if this were a silent movie. I hardly heard anything he said and there are no English subtitles offered on the dvd. As for Wes Bentley, that's acting? He kept the same expression when he was having sex as when he was having a gun pointed at him, or a co-worker being blown to "Kingdom Come" (that's a pun based on the movie). He makes Clint Eastwood look like Laurence Olivier.

The film is supposedly based on a Thomas Hardy book, but very loosely based, and the scriptwriters should have at least used Cliff Notes to have learned more about the story and the character development. They obviously fell asleep after the first couple of chapters and made up the rest.


Rating:
Summary: Rocks in the Rocky's
Review: Against the beautiful backdrop of the Rocky Mountains The Claim is a film about the rugged individualists that went looking for fortune(of different sorts) in the old west.

It is 1867 and a small mining town called Kingdom Com is attemping to get The Eastern Pacific Railroad company to come through their town. This brings Wes Bentley to survey the surrounding area to determine if the railroad will be built through the town. It is very important for the founder of Kingdom Com, Daniel Dillon(Peter Mulan) because the town will flounder if the railroad is built elsewhere. Also arriving at the same time are Hope Burns(Sara Polley) and her dying mother, Elena(Nastassja Kinski), they have some other business with Mr. Dillon. As the story unfolds it becomes apparent that there is more to this set up then there originally seems.

So, what did I like about this film? Mostly everything, well shot, well edited, above average acting, decent pacing, it is a well made picture. What didn't I like about this film? Well the title for starters, but more importantly the story. I did not care for most of the plot developments, which is just my personal opinion. The subplots also tended to the "I don't care" catigory and I thought they hurt the overall pacing. There were however a lot of little things I enjoyed about this movie. The acting was all top notch. And it had to be because Michael Winterbottom, the director, likes to use the close up as much as he can get away with. Mullan was especially good as was Kinski. Bentley and Polley had magnetic chemistry, but it was subtle which I really liked. Milla Jovovich turns in what is probably the finest work of her career(except for the singing).
I also liked how Winterbottom chose to use changes in focus as scene transitions.

All in all I enjoyed this film. I will certainly be checking out other work by Michael Winterbottom. If your a fan of strong characters and period westerns then you might check out this film and enjoy it.

Rating:
Summary: impressive drama
Review: Although set in a remote Sierra Nevada mining town in 1867, 'The Claim' is really Thomas Hardy's classic novel, 'The Mayor of Casterbridge' transported to American soil. The move is a good one.

The story concerns a wealthy miner named Daniel Dillon who practically runs the town of Kingdom Come as his own personal fiefdom. One fateful day three groups of people arrive into town: some railroad surveyors who offer the possibility that a train may soon be passing through the town, bringing with it people, wealth and prosperity; some prostitutes who plan to open up shop in this all-male community; and a sickly woman and her beautiful young daughter, who, it turns out, are the wife and daughter that Dillon sold for a bag of gold in his desperate youth ' a decision he has lived to rue ever since.

Given this multi-character canvas, writer Frank Cottrell Boyce and director Michael Winterbottom take an almost painterly approach, allowing the drama to unfold at an unhurried pace, so that they can concentrate on the bleak snowy winter setting which ends up playing as great a role in the drama as the characters themselves. The most compelling of these is Dillon, a figure of almost tragic proportions, a man who seizes the chance to make amends for his heinous sin, yet who discovers, all too late, that, for some sins, there can be no redemption. Peter Mullan provides a superbly understated interpretation of a man whose acquisition of immense wealth and power only mask the loneliness and guilt he feels inside. Wes Bentley as the chief railroad surveyor, Nastassja Kinski as Dillon's ailing wife, Sarah Polley as their daughter and Milla Jovovich as Dillon's devoted mistress all turn in outstanding performances. Although none of these characters are afforded the same richness and depth that Dillon is, they still create a fascinating tapestry of conflicting dreams and emotions. For the concept of 'dreams' is a core element of the story's pioneer theme. Here are a group of rugged individualists, all enduring great hardships on a wild outpost far away from the soothing amenities of civilized life ' yet all dreaming of being a part of the building of a burgeoning new nation, of which the makeshift towns and railroad-building are truly indelible symbols.

And, indeed, in many ways, it is the images ' of rugged mountains, of the relentlessly falling snow, of a house being pulled by horses across a snowy plain ' that stick with us most profoundly. 'The Claim' is a somber, moving and fascinating glimpse into our pioneer past.

Rating:
Summary: Stays true to the essence of the novel
Review: Based on Thomas Hardy's the Mayor of Casterbrige, this film makes use of the landscape in a way that would make the author proud. While it's set in the Sierra-Nevadas at the time of the building of the railroad, and the heroines do more trudging through the snow than picking their way over the heath, the movie stays true to the essence, if not the setting of Hardy's work.

I thought the casting was excellent. There are no "Western" stereotypes here. The saloon girls are not ravishing, but have a certain earthy quality. And even Nastassja Kinski looks convincingly tuburcular. Also, in an era when movies play fast and loose with history, this does an amazing job of portraying the times realistically. For example, most of the characters are foreign immigrants or children of immigrants, and the "town" is made up of slip-shod wooden structures, not the Gunsmoke type set we're used to seeing.

However, the movie did have its flaws. It does not, for example, tell the whole Casterbridge story. This would not be a problem, except that I got the impression that, running too long, the screenplay was cut somewhere in the middle, and then the ending was spliced on. Also, there are some scenes that could use some follow-up but go nowhere. And my teen-age daughter,who didn't know the story (but who suprisingly usually shares my taste in films) got bored with it. She felt the plot was hard to follow, and the story was a little flat.

All in all, however, if you are the type of person who appreciates a well-made movie over a blockbuster, or enjoys history, I'd say it's worth seeing.

Rating:
Summary: Too dark and snowy
Review: Dalglish (Wes Bentley) arrives to Kingdome Come in the High Sierra's in order to survey the direction of the railroad he is bringing to the area. At the party in which Dalglish is traveling there are two women, the mother Elena Burn (Nastassja Kinski) and her daughter Hope (Sarah Polley). The two women bring something old with them that only the mayor of Kingdome Come, Daniel Dillon (Peter Mullan), is aware of as it awakens his memories of his arrival to Kingdome Come. He arrived many years earlier with his wife and infant child, whom he traded for the claim of the goldmine in Kingdome Come. The Claim is a well directed story as it is multifaceted and is supported by a dazzling cast that performs brilliantly. In the end, the Claim will offer an impressive cinematic experience that has something for everyone.