7/9 #3
Last of the Mohicans (1992)
During the height of the French and Indian war, Indian-raised white man Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his adopted Mohican father (Russell Means) and brother (Eric Schweig) stumble across the path of a Huron war party bent on massacring a cavalcade of British troops headed for Fort William Henry. The fact that Cora (Madeleine Stowe) and Alice (Jodhi May), the two daughters of the Fort's commanding officer, Colonel Munro (Maurice Roeves), are travelling under the troop's protection is only an added bonus for treacherous Huron turncoat Magua (Wes Studi) -- he harbors an intense hatred for the British commander after the man's Indian massacres. Both Cora and her sister become drawn to maverick Hawkeye, much to the ire of British major Duncan Heyward (Steven Waddington) who thinks little of the native half-men. But when the fort falls to the combined French and Huron forces, Hawkeye and his wilderness skills may be their only hope for survival. The script's two-dimensional characters and flat dialogue do little to hinder director Michael Mann (of "Miami Vice" fame) and his actors. Day-Lewis, Means, and especially Studi turn in powerful, nuanced performances, while Mann shows a gift for staging intense, yet not gratuitous, battle scenes. Perhaps the film's greatest asset, however, is the breathtakingly lush cinematography of the Northeastern American wilderness. Though the novel by James Fenimore Cooper is the story's obvious basis, Philip Dunne's screenplay for the 1936 version of the film (starring Randolph Scott) is cited as the immediate source.
