The Claim

United Artists | Release Date: December 29, 2000

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

62	METASCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 28 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Film.comErnest Hardy

A sleeper that's well worth hunting down. Its rewards sneak up on you, but then linger long afterwards. Read full review

Film.comRobert Horton

This director's (Winterbottom) reach is impressive, but this time it doesn't quite grasp. Read full review

Desson Thomson

The film feels inauthentic, a cardboard version of other epics that's cast for distribution to various world markets. Read full review

Paula Nechak

Beautifully acted and conceived -- even if the final vision is not always totally satisfying. Read full review

Michael Wilmington

I liked The Claim -- as much for its stark visual beauty and impassioned performances as its intelligent script and willingness to probe the tragic side of life.

F. X. Feeney

A superb film by any measure, as deep and harsh as the sin Dillon committed to become great. Read full review

Staff [Not Credited]

The actors seem as frozen as the landscape in this unsuccessful attempt at a grand and profound Western about the California Gold Rush.

David Sterritt

Seems more clever than heartfelt, and whether you enjoy it may depend on how much you like Robert Altman's eccentric western "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," which it uncannily resembles. Read full review

David Edelstein

Gives off the same vapor of impending tragedy—of a fate neither just nor unjust but ineffably, wrenchingly right. Read full review

Bob Graham

It overcomes some patchiness to turn into a rich emotional experience, ranging in degree from fire to ice. Read full review

Peter Travers

Draws an electric performance from Peter Mullan. Read full review

Lou Lumenick

Aside from an uninspired script by Frank Cotrell Boyce, is that none of the assembled actors really has enough star presence to compete with the sheer spectacle.

TNT RoughCutAndy Klein

I can’t imagine why anyone would plunge ahead with this project -- an adaptation of a classic no one reads, about characters no one could care about, directed by a filmmaker of little talent and less success.

Desmond Ryan

Winterbottom also has the insight to share the novelist's suggestion that landscape can reflect and, to a degree, even shape character.

Dennis Lim

A numb, oddly dispassionate trudge toward predestined doom, inevitable in all the wrong ways. Read full review

Charles Taylor

One of those rare literary adaptations that finds its fidelity in freedom, that stands as both a fitting version of its source material and as its own creation. Read full review

Kevin Thomas

Sadly the film is so elusive, so distant, that it never seems more than half-alive. Read full review

Stephen Holden

A languorously muted, occasionally magnificent film. Read full review

Kim Morgan

The film moves too slowly and dispassionately to resonate as it should. Read full review

Roger Ebert

Parsimonious with its plot, which is revealed on a need-to-know basis. At first, we're not even sure who is who; dialogue is half-heard, references are unclear, the townspeople know things we discover only gradually. Read full review

Jack Mathews

Its sprawling canvas is mere backdrop for the most intimate of character studies -- a portrait of a man who chose material wealth and found emotional ruin. Read full review

Lisa Schwarzbaum

There's something almost too controlled, cerebral, and overdetermined about Winterbottom's Western notions. Read full review

Joe Morgenstern

Comes to the screen missing subtle cues and crucial connections.

Kimberley Jones

The characters in The Claim suffer under the weight of very big things -- betrayal, abandonment, disease, death -- but they do so quietly, stoically, until, by God, they just can't take it anymore. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineKen Fox

This strikingly beautiful anti-western is filled with arresting images. Read full review

Jay Carr

Stark, haunting, epic, and mournful, The Claim is a mountain of a film.

Rita Kempley

Nicely acted, wonderfully scenic but emotionally vapid. Read full review

Mr. ShowbizKevin Maynard

Despite the film's impressively epic look and an interesting cast of young and old actors, it ringingly sounds the same dour note over and over again.