It might seem a bit petty, but as a Scot watching a film about a Canadian conflict in which half the characters - "Munro", "Campbell", "Cameron" et al are all Scottish, I found the constant interchangeability in the script between English and British really quite irritating. They are not synonymous terms - is it just lazy writing? Anyway, the rest of this is a great looking adaptation of a solid boy's-own story that tells of the war in North America between the French and the British. The former under the command of "Montcalm" (Patrice Chéreau) are laying siege to the fort held by the latter under the command of "Munro" (Maurice Roëves). To add to the woes of the besieged, his two daughters are being escorted to what he hopes will be safety with him, when they are the victims of betrayal at the hands of the duplicitous "Magua" (Wes Studi) and are only saved by the timely intervention of "Hawkeye" (Daniel Day-Lewis), his father "Chingachgook" (Russell Means) and brother "Uncas" (Eric Schweig). "Hawkeye" - indeed the whole colonial farming community - is viewed with mistrust by the military and when it becomes clear that the elder sibling "Cora" (Madeleine Stowe) is beginning to take a shine to our hero, they also incur the enmity of the conniving "Maj. Heyward" (Steven Waddington). It's a story of romance, certainly, but that's kept very much under control as the warring and scheming takes front and centre making sure the adventure keeps moving along apace. DDL is on good form here, nimbly skirmishing in the forest and proving extremely adept at reloading a musket in ten seconds flat! Waddington never was a very convincing actor, but he's adequate here as our story concludes with violence, sacrifice, honour, vengeance and a sense of the futility of war. Some of the siege photography and the more general cinematography is wonderful at creating some of the claustrophobic aspects of this hitherto densely forested, virgin and perilous, territory and even though they were always at war with each other, it also highlights just how little the indigenous population actually needed our presence on their continent. Big screen if you can - it's well worth the price of the ticket.
