Wick's Review

Summary - Great 4.0

The Last of the Mohicans was a benchmark in ’92. It still packs an action wallop, delivers a romantic jolt and provides a lens into the development of the American character, notwithstanding its historical liberties.

This cinematically big movie features a perfect man who engages in a perfect romance. Make that a war-torn perfect romance – between Daniel Day-Lewis’s frontiersman and Madeleine Stowe’s proper lady. Women who can endure the movie’s savagery will be swept away.

History buffs like me cherish celebrated director Michael Mann’s period piece because its French & Indian War setting provides a canvas to explore the ways of the last Native Americans living traditional lives in New York, the increasingly fraught relationship between British settlers and the British Empire, and the emergence of American exceptionalism, one generation short of 1776.

Plus, Daniel Day-Lewis’s Hawkeye is as cool a movie hero as comes along in any generation.

Acting - Great 4.0

Daniel Day-Lewis dominates the movie, though onscreen half the time, in one of his iconic performances. Laconic yet supremely capable and physical, confident to the point of cockiness, it’s a classic American performance by the British actor. Oh yeah, his hair is perfect, with long locks that many women will covet.

Madeleine Stowe proves a worthy true-love interest for him as a Colonel’s strong and lovely daughter. Maurice Roëves stands out as her father, a British officer under siege morally and militarily.

The three main Native Americans in the cast set a standard for authentic Indian portrayals in the movies. Wes Studi’s villainous performance is every bit the equal of DDL’s heroic one, while Russell Means is quietly affecting as Chingachgook, the titular Last of the Mohicans and the adoptive Indian father of DDL’s Hawkeye. Mostly famous as a political activist, Means became a successful actor following his debut performance as Chingachgook. Likewise, Eric Schweig is also quietly affecting as his son and Hawkeye’s adoptive brother Uncas.

Film - Very Good 3.5

The Last of the Mohicans feels like a Western, which seems right given that upstate New York was the Western Frontier in the mid-1700s. To that end, it follows the form of many great post-modern Westerns by lavishing nearly as much character development on the villains as on the heroes, and in showing the Indians as understandable people, even though their cultural values are dramatically different than the Whites.

Edge - Sordid 2.6

Savage violence is more heartache than most romance fans can endure. But endure it they must to taste the tremendous romantic highs in The Last of the Mohicans.

Reality - Glib 1.5

This impressively realistic period piece credits the following:

Thanks to Chief Leon Shenandoah and the Confederacy of the Six Nations, the Smithsonian Institution and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

The last two are lovingly described as the attics of the United States and the United Kingdom, respectively.

Literary and historical liberties have been taken, nonetheless.

• Hawkeye is Chingachgook’s friend, not his adopted son, in James Fenimore Cooper’s novel.
• Cooper based his story on a real incident in the French & Indian War, though he didn’t realize that the Mohicans were apparently a tribe native to Connecticut, not New York.

The movie’s underlying reality provides insight into the developing American character in the run-up to the American Revolution. Self-reliant landowners had little use for hereditary privilege. They weren’t about to hold their tongues or obey a government in which they had no say. Twenty years later came the shot heard ’round the world.

Finally, the Indians are shown quite sympathetically, notwithstanding some savage traits. The opening scene of a respectful deer hunt is especially affecting.

4 Comments

• Wick Feb 27, 2013 10:06PM

  Regarding Wick’s Review
  OK then. Hard thing to prove.

• jasonhurwitz Feb 27, 2013 9:57PM

  Regarding Wick’s Review
  According to my English teacher during junior year of high school, this was the first movie in which someone carried and shot guns in both hands at the same time.

• Wick Feb 22, 2013 10:32PM

  Regarding Wick’s Review
  Thanks. It just came on Netflix OD about a week ago. Only problem is some of the night scenes are so dark you can’t see anything.

• BrianSez Feb 22, 2013 6:30PM

  Regarding Wick’s Review
  Great review. I remember loving this movie!

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