What's that smell? The plain isn't the only thing that's charred in screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga's directorial debut; subtlety goes up in flames too.

| Nov 17, 2013

Arriaga's multi-narrative format got the best of him. Rather than deliver a sense of shock and awe, it's swallowed up by complexity, leaving you to wonder, "This is it?"

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 12, 2010

When so many cinema releases are instantly forgettable, The Burning Plain clings to the memory...

| Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 26, 2010

It's a hard film to love, partly because of its air of deadly seriousness.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 22, 2010

Throw in enough symbolism to choke an English-lit major and you have a film challenge that too often feels like a chore.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 16, 2009

If Arriaga had allowed us to spend more time with the key characters in this extended tragedy, or had spent some time punching up the plot, The Burning Plain might have had a chance.

| Oct 16, 2009

Possibly the stories fit too neatly. If so, it's hardly a fatal flaw.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 2, 2009

It's serious stuff, intended for serious movie people. The only problem is, serious movie people have already been there, done that.

| Original Score: B- | Sep 25, 2009

The result is confusion, not catharsis.

| Sep 25, 2009

Initially, the puzzle structure and a pair of Oscar-winning actresses distract us from the dark vacuum at the center of this enterprise, but when it implodes, it doesn't reverberate.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 25, 2009

The scenery (prettily captured by There Will Be Blood cinematographer Robert Elswit) is littered with heavy symbolism (fire! rain! dead birds!); the performances are merely heavy.

| Original Score: D+ | Sep 23, 2009

Arriaga's film beats his audience over the head with the pain of its characters but provides no release, no lessons, and no relatable humanity. It's film for masochists only.

| Sep 18, 2009

The elliptical structure of the narrative can't cover up its overheated, half-baked banality.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Sep 18, 2009

Arriaga's achronological, everything-is-connected screenplays lost their originality and surprise, and started to become more like shtick.

| Original Score: D+ | Sep 18, 2009

That fractured structure worked well for Arriaga in his scripts for other directors. Here the characters aren't compelling enough to ask viewers to give their brains a workout to determine exactly what's going on.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Sep 18, 2009

I sat in the theater quietly letting it all sink in, the trickle of tears flowing steadily upon my cheek ones I hesitated to wipe away.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 18, 2009

The emotional elements in all the plot threads are tremendously earnest, but Arriaga's manipulation of time and his abrupt shifts in focus ultimately detract from the knotty narrative puzzle.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 17, 2009

Told chronologically, it might have accumulated considerable power. Told as a labyrinthine tangle of intercut timelines and locations, it is a frustrating exercise in self-indulgence by writer-director Guillermo Arriaga.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 17, 2009

For all the pretenses of roiling or suffocated desires, the cast appears to have been ordered to deaden all sensation (except for Basinger, who frets away in an underwritten part).

| Original Score: 1/5 | Sep 16, 2009

The Burning Plain marks Arriaga's behind-the-camera debut, and his obviousness is staggering.

| Sep 15, 2009