The Claim

In the Sierra Nevada during the gold rush era, Daniel Dillon has built a mining town called Kingdom Come into his own personal domain, controlling nearly everything in it. His power is threatened by the arrival of a railroad surveyor scouting the area for a new line, and by two women from his past: Elena, who is gravely ill, and her grown daughter Hope. Twenty years earlier, Dillon had sold Elena and their child to another prospector in exchange for the claim that made his fortune. Their reappearance forces him to confront the choices that built his life.

The Claim is a Western drama directed by Michael Winterbottom, the fourth of the fifteen films he has directed, following I Want You and preceding 24 Hour Party People. Frank Cottrell Boyce wrote the screenplay, and Andrew Eaton produced. Peter Mullan leads the cast as Dillon, alongside Milla Jovovich as the saloon owner Lucia, Wes Bentley as surveyor Donald Dalglish, Nastassja Kinski as Elena, and Sarah Polley as Hope. The production credits 33 cast members and 112 crew.

Made on a budget of about 20 million US dollars, the film drew modest audience scores: 6.3 out of 10 on IMDb from roughly 7,100 votes, and 6 out of 10 on TMDB from a much smaller sample of 113 votes. A critics' rating of 6.5 out of 10 from 85 reviews places it close to the audience response, suggesting a generally mixed but not unfavorable reception.