Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

The voice-over epilogue at the ending credits is profound.Particularly.for one who has witnessed death and sought some possible understanding of it.It is actual verbiage from Mr Nolte from his mothers funeral. This is explained in thew DVD extras. I pass these words on to friends when they lose loved ones, to provide strength. The words give some comfort as to the sanctity of death to the spiritual person. The analogy is easily transferred from a place to a person. The words can also be edited and also paraphrased. The meaning not lost. The film is slow and heavy in its understanding. Nolte does a magnificent job.

Basic premise: Dam is built which is about to flood the town of Northfork. Everyone is evacuated except for the "die hards". In come a group attempting to evacuate the remainder - attempt to persuade them to leave.Well it sounded interesting enough on the back of the DVD box so I rented it.A more bizarre film populated with the weirdest characters I haven't seen. And the pace - it was just so turgidly slow. If it was supposed to be languid it wasn't, it was terminal. An hour and 20 minutes I watched in silence as more and more strange, and frankly inexplicable things happened in front of me.To be honest after that point I just got bored....it was just so slow.The washed out colour, the strange soundtrack with it's languid and slow orchestral pieces mixed with radio jazz from the 40s.And the characters...I keep coming back to these strange characters...the "Cup of Tea" character living in a house with a very near sighted...well I didn't know what to make of him, some sort of robot perhaps...with interchangeable hands...and strange guy with a suitcase and a lady with a wig.It was all so...well bizarre...I couldn't make heads or tails of it...and normally I'm the kind of guy who enjoys mystery and unusual characters.The DVD also said "A cross between Twin Peaks and Six Feet Under" - well if you couldn't get to grips with Twin Peaks then avoid this film.In one sequence, the boy runs from a swing to a house after seeing some strange creature on stilts...the creature reminded me of one seen in Jim Henson's "The Dark Crystal" I honestly couldn't take any more after and hour and 20 minutes...perhaps I should have tried to stick it until the end but an hour and twenty minutes seemed like an eternity and I gave up.Two stars - might have been 3 if cinematography had been better, desolate landscape notwithstanding.

A dreamy, stunningly atmospheric film takes place in a small town of Northfork, Montana in 1955. The government officials arrive to evacuate the town about to be inundated by a new hydroelctrical dam. There are the other visitors in the town, the angels from another time but they only seen by a dying boy Irvin. A local priest (Nick Nolte in a quiet heartbreaking performance) takes care of the boy. Irvin pleads with the angels to leave the place with them...There is some unearthly quality in the film, some dignified mourning and sublime sadness when you suddenly realize the inevitable finality of everything - humans and their relationships, cities, countries, civilizations, the whole world as we know it. Death and birth have something in common - we go through them in the ultimate loneliness. I cannot recall the film that affected me in the same way and as deeply as "Northfork" did, the film so beautiful and so tender, so quiet and so powerful, so heartbreaking and so moving. Even now, after several weeks since I saw it, tears come to my eyes when I only think of it.After I saw it, I had to talk to somebody about it. I sent a PM to one of my friends and I asked, "Please tell me what I just saw?" And my friend replied with the words, "You just saw one of the greatest films of modern times. One of these days others will see the light."

The frustrating thing about a movie like this, with a true potential for greatness, is that it almost enjoys being heavy-handed. We speak of allegory, of metaphor...but the truth is, there's no getting around the fact that there is absolutely no plot or real character.At a certain point, we most know who the people are...even if we never understand where they are going. The sheer pretentiousness wore me down every time I tried to grasp a truth in this film.Call it beautiful, great and awesome...I just call it "cheating." All style and no substance. Sure, it's a matter of taste...but I would never take a confusing modernist pastiche of symbols and splashes over the spiritual clarity of Jean Cocteau or Renoir. But if it works for you, I'm all for it. Art is a personal thing, I guess.