Seraphim Falls
Destination Films | Release Date: January 26, 2007 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
62
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 21 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
8
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
You could say that Seraphim Falls, was no better than the typical Westerns of the 1950s and '60s--which I think underrates it. But those typical Westerns were pretty darn good, and so is Seraphim Falls. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
After decades of revisionist westerns, this drama by TV veteran David Von Ancken is impressive for its stubborn classicism. Read full review
75
PremiereEthan Alter
Neeson and Brosnan, along with the beautiful location photography from DP John Toll, keeps you involved even when Von Ancken's heavy-handed direction threatens to bog the proceedings down. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
If Seraphim Falls' audience appreciates its good points and ignores an ending that tries too hard, they'll just be following a grand genre-buff tradition. Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
It fulfills a lot of the criteria for a successful oater: spectacular scenery, an evocative frontier atmosphere, an ensemble of enjoyably tight-lipped performances, and plenty of stylish violence. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
A psychological drama with an intriguing ambiguity that challenges the viewer's loyalties and preconceived notions. For the first half of the movie you find yourself on the side of a hunted man. Then as the story unfolds, his pursuer becomes the one you root for. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
This is an entertaining Western with some earnest ideas about forgiveness, redemption and the loss of innocents. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Seraphim Falls is essentially one long, bleak stalk-and-kill action thriller. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Given that the movie is one long chase--Neeson's motive withheld until the end, the monotony broken only by the slaying of one member of his posse after another--the film is surprisingly gripping. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
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 full review
67
Austin ChronicleJosh Rosenblatt
With Seraphim Falls, Brosnan shows himself, finally, to be an actor of real skill – rather than just a pretty face, a great head of hair, and a buttery British accent – capable not only of playing a real human being but one with a tortured soul and a dodgy past as well. Read full review
63
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Television director David Von Ancken's metaphorical revenge Western wears its influences on its sleeve, but adds nothing to the genre that hasn't already been explored in the quietly demythologizing films of Anthony Mann and Budd Boetticher, the baroque, operatic Italian Westerns of Sergio Leone and his less-familiar peers, and even in Sam Fuller's deranged, post-Civil War psychodrama "Run of the Arrow"(1956). Read full review
60
Village VoiceRobert Wilonsky
Seraphim Falls has decent pep in its step till the final 30 minutes, when it's finally revealed why Neeson's bounty hunter is after Brosnan's surly mountain man. The flashback finale and all that comes after (and keeps on comin') drags on so long even the leads look exhausted. Till then, it's yet another replay of "The Most Dangerous Game," and Brosnan and Neeson are game for it. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKevin Crust
Brosnan and Neeson make fine adversaries mining the terse dialogue for veiled dramatic fervor. Read full review
58
Portland OregonianM. E. Russell
Seraphim isn't totally satisfying, even if you're prepared for an arty Western. It's pokey and odd in a distant, slightly self-conscious way. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterMichael Rechtshaffen
A beautifully shot (by Oscar-winning cinematographer John Toll) but dramatically empty pursuit picture set in the untamed West. Read full review
50
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Aside from spasms of brutal violence, however, there's nothing rousing or new here. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Before long, though, things take a turn from simplicity to sententiousness, then to surreal silliness, and finally to a mano-à-mano contest, on a parched desert floor, over which man gets the best close-ups.
50
The New York TimesStephen Holden
Archetypes and symbols solemnly parade through Seraphim Falls, a handsome, old-fashioned western of few words and heavy meanings that unfolds with the sanctimonious grandeur of a biblical allegory. Read full review
50
New York PostLou Lumenick
The biblically themed Seraphim Falls moseys along very slowly, climaxing with a lengthy series of flashbacks and an appearance by Anjelica Huston as a medicine woman who may or not be the devil. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleRuthe Stein
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 full review
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