The Claim

Director Michael Winterbottom has created one dark dirge of a movie, and it works on many levels. A young railroad architect (Wes Bentley) travels to a small Sierra Nevada mountain town to scout locations, and the town and its founder are forced to face many demons. Bentley is superb, and performances from Sarah Polley and Milla Jovovich also shine. The movie is ultimately a fitfully depressing examination of how, even with the best of intentions to make up for bad deeds, sometimes actions are too horrible to be cosmically forgiven. I think the writer of this film believes in karma.