What could have been when you get Redford and Defoe together. Two of the greats. Yet, by the end, I was shaking my head. Let me set the stage: you have Robert Redford getting kidnapped by Willem Defoe. Why? Who cares, says the film makers. Yet, um, it kinda does matter. Anyway, the ending is sappy and really doesn't fit with the rest of the movie. And like others have said, the FBI act more like a local county police department. What a depressing flim this was: infidelity, kidnapping, bland characters, a film devoid of explanations...count me in.… Expand

This is really a good film. This was done well, has an interesting story, and the actors preform well.

I went into this movie not knowing a thing about it, which is unusual in this day of sites like Metacritic! Turns out, I had a genuinely good time. There weaknesses of the film (which others have accurately idetified) were more than matched by the outstanding performances by Redford, Dafoe and Mirren. In addition, I found the plot structure to be fascinating and - with the exception of the silly last moment - was engrossed throughout. Worth a look!… Expand

An excellent film. Mirren and Dafoe are outstanding in their roles. Finally a movie that relies on acting and a simple well developed story, instead of silly violent scenes and things blowing up! Very well directed. Go see it!!!

I loved it!!

Excellent character drama, with three remarkable performances.

Not much of a story, simplistic direction, few surprises, and some real assaults on credulity, such as the apparent inability of the FBI to put a tiny tracking device on one of the characters, or the disturbing discussions of the case in front of all family members, baby included, or the astonishing calm throughout the "ordeal". There are other obvious no-nos that you can see coming from a mile away, but I wont give it away. Only the three main characters are adequately developed, others are cardboard cutouts. Best parts are in the interaction between Redford and Dafoe, but they're not enough to save this snoozer...… Expand

Helen Mirren was great too bad the rest of the cast wasn't as good. But then they didn't have much of a story to work with. She add least had a character. So much more could have been done with Willem Dafoe's part. The problem with these type of stories is that they make great books and lousy movies.

Works well on many levels, not exceptionally so on any of them resulting in a mediocre film.

It's hard to believe I'm knocking a film for not being conventional enough, but this would-be thriller about a kidnapping tries really, really hard to be unemphatic and naturalistic...and succeeds all too well. In fact, the first thing I wanted to do when it ended was rush home and watch William Wyler's The Desperate Hours, Joseph Sargent's The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, Ron Howard's Ransom...in short, ANY movie involving a hostage crisis that actually succeeded in getting its audience excited. Despite a largely outdoor setting, the plodding pace, unnaturally frequent close-ups, overabundance of "significant" dialogue (replete with equally abundant portentous pauses) and multiplicity of discussed-but-never-seen characters make this look suspiciously like a filmization of an equally unsuccessful off-off-Broadway play. It's a measure of first-time director Pieter Jan Brugge's ineffectiveness that the kidnapper's motivation (which would be perfect material for Michael Moore's first fictional thriller, should he ever decide he wants to do one!) fails to heat up any emotion one way or the other. Willem Dafoe, as the captor, is obviously trying for the kind of restraint that worked so well for Robin Williams in One Hour Photo, but any film in which The Green Goblin UNDERPLAYS is almost cause to request a refund; as usual, with the overrated lightweight Robert Redford as the captive, there's much less than meets the eye. By far the best thing in the movie is the great Helen Mirren as Redford's wife, who's patient but certainly no pushover; on a side note, I really admire the fact that she's growing older (and facing all the challenges that mature actreeses do in an unfair industry) without resorting to facelifts, Botox or anything but total self-assurance. Of course, that was a central theme in her last film, the delightful Calendar Girls, in which she did nudity; but here she dresses stylishly and sexily...and even has a couple of swimsuit scenes! Jamie Lee Curtis got a lot of favorable press a couple years ago for publicly announcing that she would no longer try to hide the fact that she was growing older, and she absolutely deserved it...but Mirren never made any compromises in the first place. Three cheers for a terrific actress...and a beautiful woman in every sense of the word.… Expand

Everything about this movie is unexpected. The plot, the acting, the dialogues. It is superb. Go see it, if you can.

You've got The Sundance Kid tied up in a car trunk, and Mrs. Tingle, excuse me, DCI Jane Tennison, eluding the FBI during a ransom drop, which makes "The Clearing" sound like a major studio production, and two legendary actors, slumming. There's even a "make sure he's dead before you turn around" scene between The Sundance Kid and Jesus Christ. "The Clearing" tantalizes us with the pairing of Robert Redford and Helen Mirren, and keeps them apart for all of twenty minutes. Redford, at least gets to work with Williem Dafoe. Mirren works hard to transform a stock character, the woman left behind, and make her interesting. The screenplay by Justin Haythe is smart in this aspect; because Eileen learns about her husband's ongoing affair, a pallete of emotions are available for Mirren. Wayne and Eileen have a shaky marriage, and had "The Clearing" not been an attempt to refute the genre requirements that a suspense/thriller be suspenseful or thrilling, a John Cassavettes knock-off might've broken out. Robert Redford gives a good performance, and it's too bad his character has to slide down a muddy hill. … Expand

An intelligent, wonderful, beautiful, extremely moving and well-acted film by Redford, Mirren and DeFoe.

(7.5) These films come along every so often - the ones teaming two or three of our best actors - and you feel compelled to watch them just to see if it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it really doesn't. What we get in The Clearing, however, is a movie that quite impressively showcases not only the actors, but the effect that acting itself has on the quality of a film in general. Why this one succeeds so obviously where others have failed may be due to the fact that there's not much to the plot itself, or maybe it's that the three featured players are just that good. It's probably both. Either way, it's something to see Redford, Mirren, and Dafoe paint on what is essentially a blank canvas. As in Midnight Cowboy, the performances outlast the story.… Expand