Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

Bereamic Awesome Movie

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

jimbo-53-186511 A retired gunslinger John Henry Clayton (Kiefer Sutherland) returns back to his home town after being away for 10 years (part of his time was spent in the war and part of it was spent drifting around). He returns to make amends with his father but also learns that his mother has died recently. John is determined to turn his back on his old ways, but when he learns that the townsfolk are being bullied and killed by a ruthless gang of land-grabbers it seems that John may have to come out of retirement to save the town.The big draw about this film is seeing the Sutherlands appearing on screen together and to be fair to both men they both give committed and excellent performances, but aside from that, a couple of other good performances and a reasonably tense and well-executed finale I'm struggling to find much else to praise about this film to be honest...Slow-burn seems to be the approach that Cassar has adopted here and in the early stages this is OK, but there is a fine line between something being slow-burning and boring and unfortunately, for the most part, Forsaken falls into the latter camp. The fraught relationship between father and son was interesting at first, but the threads connecting the story lines don't seem to add up to a great deal (despite the emotional weight that they seem to carry). The villains of the piece here aren't particularly intimidating and many of them seem more like ridiculous caricatures (with the exception of Wincott whose understated performance is actually pretty good). All these things combined create a vacuum in the middle of the picture which essentially sucks the life out of the film - I could have also done without the sub-plot involving Demi Moore's character as John's old flame which felt unnecessary and again dragged the picture down somewhat.Narratively, the film is also slightly problematic in the way that a lot of the land-grabbers don't seem to fear John in spite of his reputation. It also doesn't make sense that when they do get the better of him that they allow him to live??? Why would you allow the one man capable of stopping you to live?? Of course, it's to set up the inevitable showdown and to allow John to save the day, but you would think that if the land-grabbers had any brains that they would have eliminated the threat at an early stage - him being retired could have been a bluff for all they know.There is a fairly well-executed final shootout which almost makes up for the dreary and lifeless hour and a bit that preceded it, but on the whole I found Forsaken to be drawn-out, mawkish, overly-sentimental and worst of all unexciting. All in all it has some selling points and isn't all bad, but there was an awful lot of it that I found dull and uninteresting and it made for a very long 90 minutes.

jkm0119 I have read one review which talks about why this did not have a good review and he talked about the cinematography. Please understand that Cinematography is a useless word and deals with how it looks at a cinema. The acting is mediocre as I would expect from the Sutherland's. The supporting actors are so bad and the script is so bad that I would rather watch a 1930's western. I woefully watched the entire movie and even the ending is stupid. How it got such a high rating is unimaginable. I give this a 4. Apparently Hollywood knows nothing about the Bible and nothing about the Civil War. Who ever wrote this movie knows nothing about much and knows little about anything.

barbosa-vicki I really enjoyed this. As others have said, it's a classic western in the tradition of Ford, black hats and white hats. I enjoyed watching Kiefer Sutherland change from an embittered guilt-ridden ex-gunfighter to a stand-up guy driven to protect his father and the townsfolk. The relationship between father and son was very well done, the scenery beautiful, and the music the kind that goes with great westerns. Worth watching more than once.

kosmasp Way back, back into ... Western territory. And this may seem familiar if you do. So it's not so much a modern take, but more like an homage to the way things were done before. If that floats your boat (or rides your horse I reckon), than this movie is for you. If you want a lot of action scenes and clear cut heroes (because the villain is clear cut, though not all of his henchmen are that ... well evil), than you should probably start looking elsewhere.Sutherlands reunited, but not in tune character wise, which helps the plot move forward. Great to see them play off each other on screen, though Kiefer seems to be phoning in a lot things (especially the head down, want no trouble mentality, that could be described as emotionless). Other than that, this is more than decent and can be enjoyed