A Brilliant Conflict

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

A total waste of 2 hours. Scenery was awesome, characters were pretty cool, but the photography/directing was horrible. The story had a chance, the location and characters gave it their best, and with a little direction and normal use of photography it could have been a good movie. Mad at myself for watching it all.

I am so sick and tired of film makers who either don't know how to write and shoot a complete script, are too lazy to write and shoot a complete script or think that wasting my time with an incomplete story is somehow "artistic." The real life history of the Ridge family blazing the Meek Cutoff has PLENTY of material from which to construct a complete story.Failing to end your story is not art: it is a fraudulent abduction of my time and waste of your crew's hard work. (And trust me, making this film was hard work.) And the sad part is that I actually enjoyed the setup. Yes, it's slow and ponderous, which captures the essence of pioneer travel in the 1840's and really immerses you in the isolation and uncertainty of what these people went through.Would have been a great movie if they had bothered to finish the damn thing.

It's not the traditional western with the usual villains and good cowboys, with the shooting, the saloons etc. But it's a story about the first settlers on their way to Oregon. It's nice to see the rough life they had like 150 years ago. It was for sure not a trip for the weak with the constant struggle and searching for water. The movie is nicely shot and along with the good actors it makes the movie enjoyable and realistic. If you are looking for a western with the traditional shootings then this one is not for you. There is not a lot of meaningful conversations but it all adds up to the story. I only gave it a six just because of the ending that I didn't like that much. For the rest I enjoyed the movie.

My family all love Westerns, so when we bought this on Amazon (surprisingly cheap - that alone should have warned us of what was to come) we thought it would be a great way to spend an afternoon together.We then proceeded to wait for 2 HOURS for the film to begin, only for it to abruptly end with no actual meaning behind it! The characters were empty, there was no plot, by the end of it I just wanted them to die of dehydration already and put us out of our misery!I can understand why arty film-goers will love this film - the long, dragging scene shots were beautiful, but there were just far too many for me. It had such good potential as a film, but there was no action or plot that we usually expect from a film. Needless to say, we promptly threw it away.