The Western Seraphim Falls is trending on Netflix, and the underrated 2006 movie is a stealth re-imagining of a Clint Eastwood classic from 1976. Eastwood’s movies have had an immeasurable influence on the Western genre. As an actor, Eastwood starred in Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy, which is among the most critically acclaimed spaghetti Westerns ever made. As a director, Eastwood helmed the revisionist Western Unforgiven, an elegiac masterpiece that redefined the rules of the genre. This is without even considering Hang ‘Em High, High Plains Drifter, and the rest of his contributions to the genre.
However, some Westerns borrow more from Eastwood’s oeuvre than others. 2017’s The Beguiled utilized the same source material as Eastwood’s 1971 movie of the same name, and this Sofia Coppola effort owed a lot to Don Siegel’s interpretation of Thomas P Cullinan’s novel A Painted Devil. Similarly, one of the great Western movies that flopped at the box office, 2006’s Seraphim Falls, retooled the story of an underrated Eastwood movie into a grim chase thriller. Although the two movies differ, Seraphim Falls undoubtedly owes a debt to an earlier hit that starred Eastwood as its eponymous gunslinger.
Seraphim Falls Shares Numerous Similarities To The Plot & Characters Of Clint Eastwood’s The Outlaw Josey Wales
1976’s The Outlaw Josey Wales stars Eastwood as a farmer who joins the Confederates during the Civil War to avenge the murder of his family by a Union militia. Seraphim Falls retells The Outlaw Josey Wales’ story from another perspective, as Liam Neeson’s vengeance-fueled Carver tracks down Pierce Brosnan’s Gideon over a grudge that turns out to be identical to Wales’ tragic backstory. Both stories take place during the Civil War, follow two men locked in a battle to the death over a revenge quest started by a murdered family, and devote significant screen time to sustained chase sequences.
While all of Clint Eastwood’s Western movies had a meaningful impact on the genre’s history, Seraphim Falls’ debt to The Outlaw Josey Wales extends beyond simple homage. The movie is effectively a retelling of the 1976 hit, although their endings differ significantly. Eastwood’s Josey Wales has a direct conclusion, where Seraphim Falls ends ambiguously as Carver and Gideon realize their battle can only end in their mutual doom. While Carver’s anger at Gideon is more than justified, both their lives have been destroyed by their feud, and the pair acknowledge this by parting ways in the movie’s surprisingly bloodless ending.
The Outlaw Josey Wales Is Still The Superior Revisionist Western Movie
Seraphim Falls was met with mixed reviews, while The Outlaw Josey Wales was a huge hit with critics and audiences. The Outlaw Josey Wales is the stronger of the two revisionist Westerns, largely due to an ambitious, misguided hallucinatory coda that defangs the final act of Seraphim Falls. The Eastwood vehicle is a straightforward genre classic, while Seraphim Falls is more cryptic. However, Seraphim Falls does deserve some credit for upending the genre’s conventions instead of simply revisiting the Eastwood movie’s story decades later. The Netflix hit isn’t perfect, but Seraphim Falls does prove that there is life left in the Western yet.