If you like nearly two hours of dramatic build up with no climax, you will enjoy this film. From the first two laborious shots of a wagon train crossing a river, you can easily guess what you're in for...but if you've seen the trailer, you might be hoping for more. Unfortunately, what there is of characterization and hints at a plot are only window dressing for a two hour distilled view of what it was like to travel in a wagon train in the 1850s. **Spoiler Alert**: It sucked.
I've marked this review as having spoilers, because I'm going to tell you the details of the film, but in revealing them, it's not much more of a spoiler than telling you that a police drama is going to have guns and crime in it. This movie has lots and lots and lots of walking, dust, and concerns over having enough water. That's it. There's some great acting, and some nice cinematography, but there is little insight into the human condition (no more than you might get from sitting on a bench at the local mall for two hours...possibly less). There are two or three tense scenes, but they all, just like the movie as a whole, come to nothing.
I had a second review for this movie in mind, because after seeing the ending, I saw a very obvious connection to ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST. The writer basically dressed Nurse Ratched in a beard and made the inmates into a wagon train; their search for sanity is now a quest for proto-Portland; and the symbol of the suffocating pillow is replaced by a lone tree.
I can only guess that the writer could not come up with any ending that wasn't obvious, and opted instead for having no ending at all. "Let the viewer decide" is something I can enjoy in a few movies, but with the constant build up of tension in this movie, the ending felt more like an unfulfilled promise.
I've marked this review as having spoilers, because I'm going to tell you the details of the film, but in revealing them, it's not much more of a spoiler than telling you that a police drama is going to have guns and crime in it. This movie has lots and lots and lots of walking, dust, and concerns over having enough water. That's it. There's some great acting, and some nice cinematography, but there is little insight into the human condition (no more than you might get from sitting on a bench at the local mall for two hours...possibly less). There are two or three tense scenes, but they all, just like the movie as a whole, come to nothing.
I had a second review for this movie in mind, because after seeing the ending, I saw a very obvious connection to ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST. The writer basically dressed Nurse Ratched in a beard and made the inmates into a wagon train; their search for sanity is now a quest for proto-Portland; and the symbol of the suffocating pillow is replaced by a lone tree.
I can only guess that the writer could not come up with any ending that wasn't obvious, and opted instead for having no ending at all. "Let the viewer decide" is something I can enjoy in a few movies, but with the constant build up of tension in this movie, the ending felt more like an unfulfilled promise.