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Though long ago sentenced to hang, the Western genre twice received a reprieve from the gallows in 2007, most significantly with the much-anticipated, big-budget remake of 3:10 to Yuma. First, however, came this independent period drama from respected television director David Von Ancken and screenwriter Abbey Everett Jaques. Its novelistic nature and low profile resulted in predictably modest ticket sales, but Seraphim Falls (2007) is a smart, cynical cowboy epic begging for rediscovery by the genre's fans. The film's opening "attack" sequence, deftly directed by Von Ancken and performed with virtuosity by Pierce Brosnan, establishes the story's essence: it's a chase film, and a pulse-pounding, edge-of-the-seat one that can be enjoyed on that action-oriented level alone.



As the script proceeds, however, adhering to the expected structure of pursuit-and-reversal, Seraphim Falls takes a few detours into the deeply cynical, richly character-driven territory frequently visited by novelists Larry McMurtry and Cormac McCarthy. Whether the setting is an isolated farm family's homestead or a rail camp boiling with class and ethnic tensions, the film's frontier is a dirty, racist postmodern West where everyone, including children and indigenous people, is on the take, and where loyalty means a quick, surefire exit to the grave. Brosnan scrambles, panics, quivers, flees, and rages through a career-high performance that is an attention-getting one-two punch on the heels of his welcome display of acting chops in The Matador (2005), while Liam Neeson is solid if just slightly less unhinged than his Captain Ahab-like nemesis role would seemingly require. A third-act shift toward the hallucinogenic and mystical is less welcome than the filmmakers probably realized; it's unclear exactly who or what Anjelica Huston is playing in an intriguing but ultimately puzzling cameo. When Seraphim Falls draws to its conclusion, however, the unexpected but strangely satisfying and thematically honest final scene keeps faith with the rest of the film -- one that, in a fairer world, would inspire filmmakers to take another crack at the genre that can arguably be described as America's version of mythology. Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

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