The Claim (2000)

Fantastic!

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

"Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven"Michael Winterbottom directs what is in essence a Western version of Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge. It's Sierra Nevada, California, 1867 and the pioneer town of Kingdom Come is thriving under the strict but effective rule of Daniel Dillon (Peter Mullan). Dillon came by way of a gold claim many years earlier by way of a trade, the barter? His wife and child. But now the past is about to catch up with him and Kingdom Come could well turn out to be his burning hell...Right off the bat it has to be said that The Claim is a difficult film to recommend, even to Western movie lovers. It's deliberately slow and purposely elegiac and ethereal. The literary aspects of the narrative positively sparkle, yet still this doesn't make the story any more vibrant, because Winterbottom and screenplay writer Frank Cottrell Boyce want to keep things in perspective. In a film that is awash with untold beauty, the snowy mountainous landscapes (Calgary standing in for California) stunningly photographed by Alwin H. Küchler, it's perpetually cold and bleak, the ice and snow a constant that marries up with characters who are deliberately hard to like.Technically this is one superior piece of work. Küchler and Winterbottom's panoramas are sublime, the town is strikingly designed by the art department, all wooded angles and smoking chimneys that are magnificently framed by the mountains, while the sound-mix thunders the ears and adds another dimension to the grubby realistic feel. Interior sequences are filmed in low lights, making the lamps spectral in sight, the costume design and the narrative strength of the town whorehouse (which is the fulcrum of proceedings) have a class about them that shines bright in the pantheon of modern era produced Westerns, while Michael Nyman's musical score is evocatively strong.The cast respond well to Winterbottom's requirements, Mullan, Wes Bentley, Sarah Polley, Milla Jovovich and Nastassja Kinski (how nice to see the latter twin euro beauties stripped of make up to show a natural era sexiness) all turn in charismatic and heartfelt performances. Narratively the film is driving towards Dillon's day of reckoning, his shoulders heavy with regret and his soul in desperate need of purging. In the interim we are privy to the lives and loves of the townsfolk, their foibles, faults and fancies, this while the town is alive with the arrival of the railroad company, who it is hoped by Dillon will make Kingdom Come prosper still further...Unfair comparisons have been drawn with Robert Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller. Yes, this is similar in style and execution, but why not just see it as the perfect companion piece to Altman's movie? Because it is. How about we instead look at the finale? Which draws a favourably thematic link to the brilliant Boetticher/Scott Western, Ride Lonesome. When push comes to shove, and in honest terms, The Claim is a film that for sure may be hard to love, but it sure as heck fire is a film that is easy to admire. Western fans should see it because they "will" take something positive from the experience. 8/10

The Claim is a story fans of Dickens will recognise. No spoilers here, but the wind-up packs a classic one-two punch moral of the sort 19th century literature made famous. Given the period setting, it works very well. The Old Testament flavour (in a story set in a town literally named Kingdom Come) is also blatant and well-written. In a nutshell: you got Paint Your Wagon, minus the song and dance, plus meaningful commentary and careful attention to detail. As a historically-accurate, painstakingly-filmed New Western, this movie deserves to be shelved alongside such other outstanding titles as Jeremiah Johnson, Little Big Man, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. If you liked those, see this. (PS: Some reviewers are mad because the story is slow, grey, bleak, and understated, with little "action". That's also a fair description of the Old West. When you're done watching The Claim, you've been there.)

It's 1867 in the town of Kingdom Come, Sierra Nevada, California. Daniel Dillon (Peter Mullan) runs the town. Donald Dalglish (Wes Bentley) comes to town to survey for the railroad. Lucia (Milla Jovovich) is a singer. Hope Burn (Sarah Polley) comes to town with her mother Elena (Nastassja Kinski) looking for her father. Twenty years ago, Dillon had sold his wife and daughter to another gold miner for a mine.It's moody, gritty, and meandering at first. It's not clear what's going on or even who the main characters are. It's a mystery slowly unraveled. It does payoff but it makes the audience work for it. It doesn't always flow fluidly. There is a stark beauty to the mountain location and the tragic characters.

This movie has two main and huge problems: First, the plot is TERRIBLE. I thought there would be some psychological drama going on, but no and nothing. From the beginning to the end it's just dull dull dull, nothing going on, no good storyline, there were plenty of things I just did not understand at all, it was all confusing. I mean, the original idea was good, but that's about it. Second: it seems the director didn't think about how the scene looks like at all. Everything was new, it was obvious it had never been used before. People had new clothes on, even those working on the railroad, new tents (very clean, newly bought, newly built, not a drop of snow fell on them, although it seems to be snowing none stop.), some people have sunglasses (that could be my mistake, but were sunglasses common in the Sierra Nevada in 1887?), and nothing was realistic.The first twenty minutes I tried to watch the movie, then I had fun commenting it with my sister, but the second half, I was looking on the internet about it, see if some people liked it, because I couldn't really watch it anymore.Why do people shoot such movies? DON'T DO THAT ANYMORE! Please.