3/5 "Pales" in comparison to 'Se7en,' but still keeps the viewer's attention
  by Anthony Pittore (Behind You)
Dennis Quaid stars as a widowed detective facing an investigation the likes of which he has never seen: Four murders modeled after the themes of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Ziyi Zhang (Memoirs of a Geisha) also stars.

The first thing that comes to mind when hearing about a crime thriller about a detective investigation religious-themed murders will be the comparison to the modern classic 'Se7en' (David Fincher, 1995). And, yes, it's quite obvious that 'The Horsemen' had quite a bit of inspiration from that film, and the film was styled after its predecessor in more ways than the story. But, I must ask. . . is anyone surprised? Keep in mind that this film was produced by Platinum Dunes, Michael Bay's remake machine that has given us the remakes of such classic horrors as 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' and 'Friday the 13th.' Maybe Bay wanted to remake 'Se7en' a mere fourteen years after its release, but couldn't get the rights. . . so, they went for a film styled after it.

Regardless, the film itself (separated from 'Se7en' and other similar films) isn't terrible. While it CERTAINLY doesn't live up to the 7.5/10 IMDb currently rates it at (a number clearly inflated by crew and studio employees), it still works as an interesting crime thriller. The story is good, Quaid is his usual dependable self, and the direction captures some darkly attractive scenery. Also, the last 20 or so minutes give quite a few thrills and almost had me on the edge of my seat. However, on the negative side, the script is quite lacking and maintains too steady of a course, feeling more like a collection of scenes than a coherent film; Ziyi Zhang puts forth one of the most annoying performances I've seen in a long time; and the extremely rushed and thoughtless final moments leave a very bitter taste in the audience's collective mind.

Similar to the Al Pacino vehicle '88 Minutes' (2008), 'The Horsemen' simply came along too late for its audience (not to mention had a below-average script) to be as enjoyable as it could've been.

Final Verdict: 6/10.

-AP3-

2/5 The director summed it up best...
  by Steve Kuehl (Ben Lomond, CA)
In the commentary the DoP (Broms) and the director admit they "were struggling" with everything in this movie - and man did it show. This struggle included obvious re-shoots (ever wonder what Clifton Collins looks like with a wig?) and plot points being convoluted into confusion, forgotten or just plain eliminated (have to watch the deleted scenes), bad editing, an inability of one of the actors not speaking English well and the list goes on.

The plot has been summed up repeatedly here, but in the end, I was so bummed with how everything happened in the entire film, I actually watched it a second time to listen to the commentary to find out what went wrong. I have listened to many a discussion by the leaders of various films, so without slandering any one person, they summarized this whole thing up with the word they themselves kept using - painful.

This film is being supported heavily by these "youth" that participate in this suspension phenomenon happening all over the world, so expect to see lots of glowing reviews. And should you have some morbid interest in this self mutilation you can hear the director discuss all kinds of details about how to succeed at this. Did not work for me, but the only interest in seeing this waste of film would be to hear some of the songs and watching Quaid have one of his worst outings - ever. The camera work was unique at times, the storytelling was mismanaged (explained by how the crew kept comparing things to how they made music videos) and the performances were below average. Skipper.

1/5 I'm still trying to wrap my head around how bad this movie is.
  by Robert P. Beveridge (Cleveland, OH)
The Horsemen (Jonas Åkerlund, 2009)

I saw an ad online for this movie a couple of days ago, as it had just come out on DVD, and I marveled that I'd never heard of this before. How could I have missed a mystery/horror flick starring two very big names (Dennis Quaid and Ziyi Zhang) and directed by a respected guy like Åkerlund? I've never been a big Åkerlund fan, but I know he's gotten a lot of critical respect for Spun, a drug comedy/action flick he made a few years back. And yet this, produced by Michael Bay no less, as far as I can tell went to a few festivals, played for a couple of weeks in five American cities, and then got dumped straight to DVD. What? And the premise was pretty darned cool, a kind of Seven ripoff based on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse rather than the seven deadly sins. I'm all for Seven ripoffs if they're quality, so I knew I had to go rent a copy and check it out. And now I understand completely why it achieved instant obscurity. The Horsemen is, of the 25-30 I've seen so far, the worst movie of 2009.

Quaid plays Aidan Breslin, a detective with a background in orthodontics who gets assigned to a case after a cache of extracted, bloody teeth is found in the woods. The first body is found soon after, the wife of a prominent businessman (Peter Stormare) who has a number of adopted children. One of those, Kirsten (Zhang), has just turned eighteen and seems attracted to the recently-widowed Breslin. He, however, has his own problems dealing with both the death of his wife and the resentment of his older son (Southland Tales' Lou Taylor Pucci). Breslin is convinced that the murderers (for there must be four) have taken the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as their motif, and the case becomes a race against time--can they find the killers before they find themselves with more victims? Things get weird when one of the murders chooses to step into the light--and it's the last person Breslin would have suspected...

There was a great deal of potential here, but every time it reared its ugly head, it was soundly beaten down either by the pedestrian direction, the woeful miscasting (Ziyi Zhang's performance has been talked to death, no reason for me to do more than mention it here), or the script, which managed to get the big plot twists right, but lacks everything else. Breslin's actions are in many ways affected by the death of his wife, but other than being pulled out for a row with the kid and mentioned in order to set it up, we don't get any real sense of the thing. For that matter, we don't get much of that about anyone; we get told about the affectations of certain characters, but we never get a sense of those as actual pieces of their personalities. They're nothing but plot points.

Much worse than it would have been had it not contained the possibility of a good movie. Avoid like the plague. (half)


2/5 How to ruin a movie in the last ten minutes...
  by Jesse Enciso (La Habra,CA USA)
When I first saw the trailer for this film on the internet it seemed promising. Then I heard that it was going straight to DVD. This can't be good! The film is obviously heavily influenced by Seven, and to a lesser degree, Manhunter. Dennis Quaid is good as usual, but most of the other cast seems like they're just phoning in their performances. (Hey wasn't that the guy from Fargo in a brief cameo?) I was surprised to see that this film was produced by Michael Bay since it didn't have the usual flair or sense of budget that his other producing projects have had. (Namely the Texas chainsaw massacre and Friday the 13th) The film was decent until the last ten minutes. There were too many inconsistencies and a very fast resolution which revealed nothing. Perhaps when they have this film in the bargain bin at Walmart in the near future I might pick it up and give it another view. For now I'll just be glad that it was only 85 minutes long. If you want a classic Dennis Quaid movie, just watch Great Balls of Fire or Enemy Mine.

4/5 NYsoldier Boy
  by Sean A. Green (White Plains, NY USA)
I never heard of this movie until i went to return one at the redbox. almost every movie was sold out except a few along with horsemen so i rented it and i was suprised at how good it was. the only problem was the ending it could of been better but overall it was a really good movie plus dennis quaid is a really good actor. if not to buy i would atleast rent it but im going to buy it now.