Missing ‘Yellowstone’? Watch This Bleak, Unforgiving Western Starring Wes Bentley and Milla Jovovich

If that Yellowstone finale has gotten you down, and you want to see Wes Bentley in a less villainous Western role, then look no further than the 2000 picture, The Claim. The film stars Bentley as Central Pacific Railroad surveyor Donald Dalglish as he arrives in Kingdom Come to meet with a man named Daniel Dillon (Peter Mullan). As he does, Dalglish begins to fall in love, and the audience uncovers a dark secret at the heart of the Dillon’s position in the wintery, gold-mining town. A far cry from his performance as Jamie Dutton on Yellowstone, The Claim is one of those long-forgotten Westerns worthy of rediscovery. Oh, and Milla Jovovich is in this one too, perhaps in her very best role yet.

‘The Claim’ Is an Odd Romantic Western With Serious Flare

Based on the novel The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy, The Claim was directed by Michael Winterbottom with a screenplay by Frank Cottrell-Boyce. Wes Bentley and Milla Jovovich give phenomenal performances as Donald Dalglish and brothel owner Lucia, respectively. One of Bentley’s earliest roles, the 21st century Western follows Dalglish as he arrives in the town of Kingdom Come hoping to expand the railroad through it. Along the way, he unexpectedly falls for a young woman named Hope Burn (Sarah Polley), who is really Hope Dillon, instead. The town’s founder and richest citizen, Daniel Dillon, hopes that the railroad will come through the town, and aims to do everything in his power to see that it does. But when Dalglish arrives in town, so does his former wife, Elena (Nastassja Kinski) and their daughter, Hope, who Dillon had sold years earlier in exchange for a gold claim that made him rich.

If that sounds absolutely bizarre, then wait until you see how The Claim ends. Unfortunately, the picture was a box-office failure. Most either didn’t see The Claim or forgot all about it soon after. It was generally panned by critics, who criticized the film’s pacing and plot, though praised the performances (and rightfully so). However, famed Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert chimed in with a remarkably positive review, noting that the film “rides on its cinematography.” He’s right, of course. The Claim is a beautifully shot film that captures the full scale of a wintery Old West frontier. Furthermore, Ebert notes that the film’s strength ultimately lies in the intersecting and later divergent paths of its protagonists, Peter Mullan’s Dillon and Wes Bentley’s Dalglish. Throughout the film, each of them are either getting better as people or worse depending on the scene and circumstances, and it’s in that meditation that the film has something profound to say.

‘Yellowstone’s Wes Bentley and Milla Jovovich Thrive in ‘The Claim’

Incredibly sensual, suggestive, and depraved in the way it handles some of its characters (and in some of the cinematography as well), The Claim is a fascinating tale that feels almost biblical (certainly Old Testament-like) in execution. The perversion, greed, and inconsistency of man is on full display here, and there’s a deep tragedy in Dillon’s struggle to reconcile his decision to sell his wife and newborn daughter with his current status as the top man in town. (The way his story concludes is especially fitting, all things considered.) But where The Claim really thrives is with Bentley’s Dalglish and Jovovich’s Lucia, the most well-rounded of the bunch. Dalglish is a man of single-mind who is instantly pulled in different directions as he’s caught between his immediate love for Hope and his attraction to Lucia, who, for most of the picture, is Dillon’s main squeeze.

The way Bentley and Jovovich so easily bounce off one another, with a flittering allure that fans the flame of desire, is impeccable. Their work together here makes us wonder why the pair weren’t cast opposite the other again. Jovovich is simply powerful, playing a woman entirely sure of who she is and what she wants, even if those around her have no clue. Even when her “happy ending” is upended by the arrival of Hope and her mother, Lucia finds her own path apart from Kingdom Come. Without spoiling too much, The Claim gives both Wes Bentley and Milla Jovovich meaty roles to sink into. While neither are really the hero of the story, they represent the moral ambiguity and lawlessness that plagued the American frontier.