Seraphim Falls 2007

Critics score:
55 / 100

Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: ... well-crafted but unremarkable ... Read more

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: Seraphim Falls is a movie some will relish and others will find a bit anachronistic. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: The director, David Von Ancken, and his cinematographer, John Toll, do magical things with the ever-shifting light, and there are splendidly weird turns from Anjelica Huston as a snake-oil salesperson and Tom Noonan as a wagon-train Evangelist. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: ... impressive for its stubborn classicism. Read more

Noel Murray, AV Club: Seraphim Falls has a crispness and economy that few genre films can claim these days. Read more

Richard Nilsen, Arizona Republic: ... Seraphim Falls keeps you in suspense with what will happen next: a good, old-fashioned storytelling virtue. Read more

Kevin Crust, Los Angeles Times: ... it moves along with minimalist efficiency before running out of gas during an overlong allegorical final section. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Seraphim Falls isn't completely without interest, particularly for those of us who still like Westerns and bemoan their demise almost as much as we bemoan the demise of the movie musical. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: [Neeson] and Brosnan are supremely well-matched foils, though I do wish that the filmmaker, David Von Ancken, had lent his sparsely mythic tale just a twinge of something...new. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: ... technically solid but dramatically unremarkable ... Read more

Robert Wilonsky, L.A. Weekly: Seraphim Falls has decent pep in its step until the final 30 minutes. Read more

Jan Stuart, Newsday: You can, if you so choose, read the film as a lesson in the futility of violent conflict as a means toward a peaceful end. Or you can let it just wash over you, fast and pounding, like a waterfall. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Von Ancken may have begun this by wanting to remember films like High Plains Drifter. But all he ends up doing is reminding us how much better they were. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: ... an entertaining Western with some earnest ideas about forgiveness, redemption and the loss of innocents. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: ... moseys along very slowly ... Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: A handsome, old-fashioned western of few words and heavy meanings that unfolds with the sanctimonious grandeur of a biblical allegory. Read more

Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle: A Western short on dialogue and long on pomposity, is little more than an extended chase scene down a snow-filled mountaintop to a desert floor. Read more

Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine: It is not a terrible movie -- its beginning holds a certain promise -- just, finally, an unengaging one. Read more

Derek Adams, Time Out: The overweight middle section is repetitive, contrived and, well, boring. But at least the views are spectacular and Brosnan, especially, is likeably quirky. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: For all its manliness, the film works slightly better as a bitter romance gone postal. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Seraphim Falls is a psychological drama with an intriguing ambiguity that challenges the viewer's loyalties and preconceived notions. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: Aside from spasms of brutal violence, however, there's nothing rousing or new here. Read more