Pathfinder is a fun, gory, beautifully photographed hybrid-movie from genre specialist Marcus Nispel, and it shows a clear affinity for the action beats and nature aspects from the films of Terrence Malick (The New World), Michael Mann (The Last of the Mohicans), and Mel Gibson (Apocalypto). Released in 2007, this is a unique item, a film that balances horror elements, sword and shield historical fiction, and Native American mysticism in an effort to conjure up something startling and different within the context of the period action film genre. The effectively blunt narrative sets up the action right at the outset, with Karl Urban’s monosyllabic performance in clear debt to the hulking bravado of Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian (which Nispel would later update in 2011), and while the screenplay from Laeta Kalogridis typically jettisons surprise in favor of sturdy if clichéd dramatics, the star of the film is clearly the visually talented Nispel and his incredible cinematographer Daniel C. Pearl, who shoots in moody, highly textured widescreen, combining an almost monochromatic look to go along with the crimson red swaths of blood that fly all over the screen. This is a film in love with its violent spectacle, and the barbaric sights that are offered up take full advantage of the R-rating (and are even more intense in the unrated edition out on disc). Nispel clearly went to rigorous physical ends with this production (Herzog would blush at the mountain footage), which looks and feels twice as big as its reported budget ($30 million). And in this day and age of watered down, neutered action films, there’s a refreshing honesty to the carnage and bloodletting, all of which feels intensely cinematic; it’s an area that Nispel wonderfully excels at. And though his films have mostly done strong business worldwide for the last 12 years, he’s still waiting to deliver his BIG blockbuster film, and I have a feeling that his upcoming sea monster film (which has apparently been inspired by Nordic myth) might be that movie.
Podcasting Them Softly 