The Last of the Mohicans *** (1992, Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe, Russell Means, Eric Schweig, Jodhi May, Steven Waddington, Maurice Roëves, Wes Studi) – Classic Movie Review 4664

Director Michael Mann’s admired 1992 period adventure movie solidly remakes the 1936 original sound version of James Fenimore Cooper’s novel of the French and Indian War, The Last of the Mohicans with Randolph Scott and Binnie Barnes. Though it is sluggish to start, then it bursts into a violent adventure film, with beautiful-looking epic scenes rare in Nineties movies.

It is set in 1757 in North America, where the British are fighting the Americans and both sides have tough native Indian allies – and life is nasty, brutish and short.

Daniel Day-Lewis stars as American frontiersman Hawkeye, adopted half-white son of Chingachook (Russell Means), who rescues and falls for a handsome woman called Cora Munro (Madeleine Stowe), the daughter of an unbending British commanding officer, Colonel Edmund Munro (Maurice Roëves). Uncas (Eric Schweig), his father Chingachgook and his adopted brother Hawkeye are the last members of the dying Mohican Native American tribe, living in peace with the British colonists till a scout kidnaps the colonel’s daughters Cora and Alice Munro (Jodhi May). Hawkeye and Uncas set out to rescue the women.

Also in the cast are Steven Waddington as Major Duncan Heyward, Wes Studi as Magua, Patrice Chéreau as General Montcalm, Edward Blatchford as Jack Winthrop, Terry Kinney as John Cameron, Pete Postlethwaite as Captain Beams, Tracey Ellis as Alexandra Cameron and Justin M Rice as James Cameron.

The movie is traditionally crafted and thoroughly old-fashioned as befits a script based on both the James Fenimore Cooper classic novel and the 1936 original screenplay by Philip Dunne. Day-Lewis is by no means an obvious choice for the part and he makes little headway beyond looking heroic, shooting straight and mooning over Stowe. But then Michael Mann and Christopher Crowe’s screenplay makes little attempt to develop three-dimensional characters, concentrating its attention on the story, the scenery, the atmosphere and the action.

Although director Mann conjures up gorgeously pretty visuals with Dante Spinotti’s extraordinary cinematography, he can’t quite bring the epic sweep and grandeur he wants to the film. So it remains merely a proficient entertainment. Alas, Trevor Jones and Randy Edelman’s relentlessly pounding music score is a major demerit, though it was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Original Score.

It won just one Oscar – for Best Sound – but it also won Bafta awards for Best Cinematography and Best Make Up Artist (Peter Robb-King).

It was previously a 1920 silent with Wallace Beery, a Sixties TV series, and a TV movie in 1977.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4664

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