Rating: 
Summary: Inexpressive claim
Review: I'm sorry to say, but it's the most boring movie I've seen so far this year. NOTE: not the WORST, but the MOST BORING. Yes, it has good actors, mostly females: N Kinski and S Polley (who play mother and daughter) and who, as we are given a hint in the beginning of the movie, share a connection to the "town-king" casino and saloon owner Mr Dillon (and who's literally sitting on gold), who lives with a Portuguese (!!!) singer played by... Mila Yovovich. There's also Mr Dalglish (played by Wes Bentley, desperately needing a shave) who comes to the city to plan a railroad. In the snows of Northern California these 5 characters try hard to stage a drama of human betrayal and passion, of choice we often have to make between gold and love. The problem is we don't give a damn about them. There are Chinese sluts and dirty gold-diggers, some shootings (for what reason?), some fires, a snow-blizzard, a carnival, a wedding and a funeral. The whole story, which takes place either in a brothel or in the snows, is bleak and freezingly dispassionate. The way characters behave is simply beyond my understanding sometimes. Budding romance between the characters Hope and Dalglish are unpersuasive and never got realized. Maybe they should have chosen one plotline and concentrated on that. A waste of time and talent. Watch it when you want to fall asleep (I was dozing away three times, honestly)! When you buy this film, the only thing you'd like to CLAIM, would be your money back!
Rating: 
Summary: One of the best films I've ever seen
Review: If, as another reviewer said, you're looking for big blasts, action and a superficial script that has nothing to reveal then get yourself something else. This film is beautiful from start to finish. The acting is superb and contained, not overly dramatic...half of the dialogue is in the character's faces and gestures and not in the words they speak. Sarah Polley's performance as the introverted young girl who lives through the most painful years of her young life is outstanding. Shot in British Columbia (supposed to depict the Sierra Neveda Mountains), the scenes are breathtaking (particularly on a large screen) and cold, very very cold. The story will leave you weeping (at least it did me), and is even more affecting because it is all so understated. Not for those who want happy endings or who can't sit through serious drama. This is acting and cinematography at its best.
Rating:
Summary: "Everything has a price"
Review: In the opening scene of the movie, The Claim, two groups arrive in the small California town of Kingdom Come at the same time in the dead of winter high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. One group led by a young railroad engineer, Dalglish, played by Wes Bentley, has come to scout out the route for the transcontinental railroad.
The stagecoach has also brought two mysterious women riding out in the cold on the back, a mother and daugter. They are mistaken for "soiled doves" and propositioned when their arrival coincides with a large goup of prostitutes coming to work the gambling saloon/brothel. Daghlish comes to their defense and a brawl ensues.
Thus is our introduction to the town of Kingdom Come, run by Mayor Daniel Dillon (played by Peter Mullen) who rules everything. This movie, based on the novel by Thomas Hardy "The Mayor of Easterbridge", has all the key elements - man against nature, man against man, man against himself.
The young woman, Hope, immediately sets her sights on Dalglish, thinking him her hero. She has come to town at her dying mother's insistance, told only that they have a rich relative here and no more. Hope is to give the black rosary beads to the mayor, which she does. This motivates him to return to a small mining shack above the town where he remembers arriving in the area twenty years before in the middle of a blizzard. Taken in and offered warmth and whiskey by one of the forty-niners, he trades his wife and daughter for the claim and gold.
Mayor Dillon does the right thing by his dying wife, abandoning his mistress and building a huge house for them, and doing his best to find cures for her consumption, but Hope is left out in the cold as to the true nature of her relationship with the mayor.
Director Michael Winterbottom has given us a beautifully-made film. The scenery is breathtaking and the story is intriguing. The film bears the subtitle "Eveything has a price," precisely describing the theme of the movie.
Rating:
Summary: Awful
Review: Is this what we have sunk to? I find it unbelieveable that critics of Ebert and Roeper's calibre give this movie a good review. I don't know what depressed me more - the content (the guy who has a prostitute for every town he visits is our "romantic hero") or the acting (OK folks, we can see that you can do "dead pan" - isn't there anything else you learned in acting school?) There is a huge fire in the movie which could be construed as being a desperate attempt to bring some fire to dull, lifeless characters who adorn a dull, lifeless movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Where's the Beef??
Review: It is inconceivable that the same man, Michael Winterbottom directed both "The Claim" and "Jude." "Jude" was gut-wrenching, sometimes grotesque but always involving. "The Claim" based on Thomas Hardy's "The Mayor of Casterbridge" is mostly vacuous, mostly incomprehensible and mostly poorly conceived. Something went very wrong here. And my bet is that it was in the cutting room as so many scenes simply do not flow properly from one to the other. Large chunks of film seem to be missing that would have made the film and probably more importantly the performances more coherent. This especially hurts Peter Mullan's performance as Daniel Dillon. Do we honestly have much evidence as to why this man would sell his family for a gold claim? What little is shown of his motives do not substantiate him doing this. Those of us who have read the novel have to do this filling in on our own. Other than that the physical production of the film is flawless and Wes Bently and Sarah Polley make their presence felt.
Rating: 
Summary: How did it go SO wrong?
Review: It's hard to add more to what has been said in the other reviews but with the powerful story of the "Mayor of Casterbridge" to "inspire" it, and a strong director and cast, how did it go SO wrong? Editing mostly I'd say, I asked myself halfway through "where's the plot?" and didn't even realize it was borrowing from Thomas Hardy till about the three-quarter point. Confusing, un-coordinated and a huge waste of time. Yes, dammit, it WAS boring! Hey, but those two Portugese songs were good; I don't think the singer got credited.
Rating:
Summary: Hope Comes to Kingdom Come and Leaves Again
Review: Movie Summary: It's 1867 and Mr. Dillon runs the small mining town of Kingdom Come. Three people arrive in his town on the same stage on the same day. Two represent his past and one his future. One of them is Donald Dalglish the man from the railroad who will decide if the railroad comes through Kingdom Come making everyone rich, or passes it by killing it. The other two are a mother and daughter who bring with them a past that Dillon is forced to deal with. My Opinion: The story seems like it should be a good one, but it's just not very engaging. The characters seem like they should be interesting and likeable, but the end up being flat and dull. The main character Mr. Dillon is never developed as a character to the point where we know or care why he did what he did and how he feels about it now. The plot ends up being straight forward, but is confused through partial flashbacks during the movie. The direction and acting are fine, but they end up being just window dressing on a story that I found no reason to care about. In the end I had to force myself to finish watching the movie knowing that I had much better DVD offerings in the briefcase on my lap. DVD Quality: Video: Widescreen Anamorphic 2.35:1 Sound: DD 5.1 Extras: The trailer is the only extra on this bare bones DVD. What You Should Do: Steer Clear of this one unless you like long drawn out character studies. I found the entertainment value of this one very low. Related Movies To Check Out: Unforgiven, Pale Rider, High Plains Drifter
Rating: 
Summary: A Hardy Spin on the American Western
Review: One of the most remarkable adaptations of a literary work I've seen. Frank Cottrell Boyce completely changes Thomas Hardy's classic The Mayor of Casterbridge - and actually betters it lifting it from its original setting and tailoring it into a tale of the American West during the Gold Rush. Some of Hardy's holes hold (predictable) difficulty for many modern readers, but Boyce's western retelling fills them in and lends strong plausibility. (There's a tad too much "faint, fall ill and die" for me in the Hardy original). Some have complained that Boyce went too far - but this is a movie "based" on the book not claiming to be a faithful retelling.
Director Michael Winterbottom proves to have an enormous eye emerging in bold style at once stylized and natural. He brings us here images that, once seen, burn, linger and haunt forever be it a Victorian mansion hauled across the frozen plains or a horse's immolation as on fire it gallops across the screen.
Winterbottom's cast is a strong one - none remaining as they initially seem, each changing before our eyes. Kinski, first strong and bitter gives one of her most tender heartbreaking performances, Wes Bentley, likeable and promising becomes petty and meddlesome. Milla Jovovich serves up, predictably, hearty and hot, yet more delicate than she would like to appear.
In all of this Peter Mullan's Daniel Dillon is the focus and the fulcrum by which the story hinges. He is never less than masterful. To see him early on nearly ravaged by youthful greed then watch him in age yearn for salvation that may never come or come too late, one cannot help but be riveted by his endeavor to make up by his plight and his attempt to change it.
The Claim is a remarkable film which, while it may take a bit of time to warm up to, burns its own unique reward in a way few modern Hollywood films can.
Rating:
Summary: A Most Curious Failure
Review: Perhaps the most perplexing failure of a movie I've ever suffered because the movie's plot is highly compelling but the execution--cold characters, confusing shots, absence of tone and soul--result in an empty melodrama. Never have I been so removed from characters in a story as noble as this one. The consequence was great irritation and befuddlement.
Rating:
Summary: Movies Don't Get Any Better Than This
Review: Quite simply, "The Claim" is the best film I've seen thus far in the young millennium. A dark, Shakespearean tale of retribution, it is in fact a transposition of one of British author Thomas Hardy's greatest novels, "The Mayor of Casterbridge," to the 19th Century American West. It is aimed at literate viewers whose attention span is longer than that of a golden retriever. WARNING: The subtlety and slow pacing of this film render it potentially lethal to anyone who likes auto racing, pro wrassling, and/or "Armageddon"!
|
