A TRAGEDY THAT MISSES ITS MARK.

Byline: David Kronke Staff Writer

In ``The Claim,'' the fortunes of a small mining town in the Sierra Nevada rest on whether a railroad representative can be cajoled into making the town a stop on the railway's expansion across America. Success means the town will flourish; failure could spell its death.

Peter Mullan stars as Dillon, the man who single-handedly created Kingdom Come (which would've been a better title), a handful of buildings slapped together in the middle of a severe, snow-and-windblown nowhere that does manage to provide the necessities: a brothel, a bar and a casino. The manner in which Dillon came to rule this modest Kingdom has to do with the Biblical observation about gaining the world but losing one's soul and, naturally, will have tragic repercussions.

As the film opens in 1869, Dillon's got it cushy. In addition to having successfully tapped into a gold mine, he has also earned the affections of Lucia (Milla Jovovich), the bordello madame. Enter Dalglish (Wes Bentley, one of the troubled teens in ``American Beauty'') - whose name gets pronounced as ``dog leash'' a lot - a strapping representative of the Central Pacific Railroad surveying the Sierra Nevada for the optimal crossing point for trains to reach to the Great Plains and beyond, back to the rest of America.

Also arriving are Elena and Hope Burn (Nastassja Kinski and Sarah Polley). Elena, racked with tuberculosis, has unfinished business with Dillon to which Hope, racked with a particularly heavy-handed metaphoric name, is oblivious.

How screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce (``Hilary and Jackie,'' ``Welcome to Sarajevo'') and director Michael Winterbottom (``Sarajevo,'' ``Jude'') weave the five characters' stories together - through means both heartfelt and utterly cynical - is laudably seamless (although there are a few anachronistic touches). Eventually, the Western mythos of the entrepreneurial spirit depending on one's prowess with firearms comes into play.

``The Claim'' drifts along with a pervasive melancholy air, accentuated by Michael Nyman's elegiac score and Alwin Kuchler's murky, often monochromatic cinematography. Performances - particularly Bentley, Mullan and Polley - are credible and deceptively subtle. Jovovich apparently has not been introduced to the concept of moderation.

In more ways than one - the town, the textures, the story line in strokes both broad and specific and even particular shots - the film seems cribbed directly from Robert Altman's underappreciated 1971 classic, ``McCabe and Mrs. Miller.'' (In actuality, it's loosely based on a Thomas Hardy novel, ``The Mayor of Casterbridge.'')

Ultimately, ``The Claim'' is quietly moving once it reaches its inevitably tragic conclusion, but its pacing can at times be painfully deliberate. At its best, it's prosaically profound; at its worst, it's profoundly prosaic.

``THE CLAIM''

(Rated R: nudity, sexuality, language and violence)

The stars: Wes Bentley, Sarah Polley, Peter Mullan, Milla Jovovich, Nastassja Kinski.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Michael Winterbottom. Written by Frank Cottrell Boyce, based on Thomas Hardy's ``The Mayor of Casterbridge.'' Produced by Andrew Eaton. Released by United Artists.

Running time: Two hours.

Playing: AMC Century City.

Our rating: Two and one half stars

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Photo:

Milla Jovovich dances with railroad man Wes Bentley in ``The Claim.''