The most interesting aspect of Seraphim Falls (Samuel Goldwyn/Destination) is the impressively gritty change-of-pace performance by Pierce Brosnan, building on his entertaining and offbeat work in The Matador.
Otherwise, this film is a downbeat, post-Civil War chase saga with some artsy surrealistic flourishes thrown in for good measure. The bearded Brosnan plays Gideon, a bedraggled ex-soldier who, for reasons we don't learn until the film is more than half over, is fleeing relentless pursuer Carver (Liam Neeson) and his posse (including Michael Wincott and Ed Lauter), while enduring bitter cold, raging waterfalls, gunshot wounds and other vicissitudes.
Because we see the story through Gideon's eyes (and in these cases, the pursued is usually sympathetic), we assume he's being unfairly hounded, or if that's not the case that he must be guilty of a crime of unspeakable enormity. Neither turns out to be quite true, and the film does have a couple of twists before climaxing with a redemptive confrontation in the desert. (As with the film's title and protagonist's name, there are various other spiritual allusions throughout, as well as an encounter with some religious settlers at one point, and a mystic Indian at another.)
Director and co-writer David Von Ancken pays homage to iconic Westerns (not to mention Erich Von Stroheim's Greed in that final scene), but his spare script (co-written with Abby Everett Jaques) is ultimately disappointingly routine and slow-moving.
Though the two Irish leads are solid, Angelica Huston has an enjoyable turn as an improbable medicine woman, John Toll's cinematography is striking and the resolution is admirably moral (with strong messages about forgiveness and ending violence), everything feels either strangely familiar or oddly contrived.
The film contains sporadic, brutal if reasonably restrained violence, a mercy killing, a gruesome bullet removal and some crude language and profanity. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
