Horsemen DVD: Review By Shelley

The Horsemen is one of those films when it begins you think it is going to be a very good film and you wonder why it has not received more attention. Then about half way through it becomes predictable and reminiscent of so many religious based films of the past. It was good to see Dennis Quaid and he gives his standard performance. The other lead role was played by Ziyi Zhang from China who gives an ok performance but her character is suppose to be an adopted child that has been living in the U.S. since she was eight years old but still speaks with an accent. This made her less convincing as well as somewhat irritating. Everyone else’s performance was decent but no one is going to win any awards.

I have read several reviews (there are not many out there) that state this movie is original and interesting. I did not find it original at all but I will say it was interesting to a certain extent. It felt like a lot of the religious based crime movies done in the past. The first one that comes to mind is Se7en but instead of seven sins we have four horsemen. The photography is not impressive either and looks more like a television movie than one that was released at the theater. I will say however the special effects are done very well with no CGI to speak of.

The movie is basically about a recently widowed detective (Quaid) is brought into a strange new case that eventually leads to four individuals linking themselves through murder to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Revelations 6). Supposedly they are highly organized and intelligent but come off as being unorganized and unable to ‘cover their tracks’ very effectively. The story is well written at some points but at others it makes you just roll your eyes and think about fast forwarding. They try extremely hard to have a few twists in the story but by that time the film is off track and they really are not all that surprising. It is almost as if the writers really cared about the film when they began writing and then somewhere in the middle kind of stopped caring. The loopholes are abundant but can be overlooked if you do not think about it too hard. I also noticed the microphones were visible in several scenes.

The Horsemen was released in theaters, but on an extremely limited scale. You would think that with a name like Dennis Quaid it would have wide release. Maybe he does not have the box office draw as he once had. Needless to say, this film made practically no money. I do not foresee a bunch being made off the DVD sales either.

SPECIAL FEATURES: Standard DVD

Audio Commentary by Director Jonas Äckerlund and Director of Photography Eric Broms

Deleted Scenes

It would have been nice had they had a commentary on the religious aspects of this film. There are so many references to the Bible that I feel it would have been interesting to hear different perspectives on interpretation.

REPLAY VALUE:

Below average replay value for The Horsemen because once you have seen the end there is not much to want to watch again.

BOTTOM LINE:

I have to say this film is decent but unfortunately average. I do recommend it but only as far as a rental, it is definitely not worth the purchase price. If you enjoy religious themed films, Dennis Quaid or cannot find anything else to rent, then pick this one up. It might not be the greatest but it is better than many movies I have seen as of late.

Thanks for reading.