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Rating:  -
A vague recollection of seeing Man in the Wilderness many years ago has kept me chasing this title for the past few years. Now that I've finally seen it again I am less impressed. I think I may have inadvertently combined this in memory with "The Scalphunters," another good flick with some similarities. Man in the Wilderness is still an excellent movie and deserves perhaps more than the three stars I've allowed, on account of the other turkey that's attached to it. I say this despite the fact that I see Richard Harris as one of the great Overactors of our time, and not one of my favorites. In this movie, he says barely a word, which helps the movie tremendously. It's a survival/adventure, believable, and has a mature and interesting story line. I particularly like the non-traditional characterizations and anti-stereotyping. They're no clear-cut good guys and bad guys, white and black hats. There's just survival, hard decisions and consequences. The movie also features a surprising, and (for its time), a very original ending.
As usual, John Huston is worth watching.
The Deadly Trackers, on the other hand, is one long cliché. Another good and kind sheriff turns into a savage psychopath after watching his loved ones cruelly killed by the bad guys he's now tracking down to kill.
I'll give the first four stars, the last, one.
Rating:  -
I really enjoyed the movie "Man in the Wilderness" when it first came out. Finally it's on dvd. Good quality. Highly recommend. The other movie encluded is so, so, but watchable.
Rating: -
This movie was made back in the days when stupid non realistic John Wayne type westerns were made. Instead this movie was a cutting edge realistic movie of its time that has gone unrecognized for its greatness. Bits and pieces of this movie could be used in a documentary about the real early pioneers of the west. The detail is amazing. The story I understand is fictional but amazing non the less.
What I like about the movie most of all is that it has a Christian base. Catholics as well as Protestants will understand this movie from this angle.
From a Christian perspective the movie is about a man who was brought up in a mixed Christian world. His teachers were cruel and forced God on him without a sense of God's love. He lost his parents at an early age and was forced to live a hard life with men who probably did not know God's love.
He was reintroduced to God by his good wife who was so filled with Faith, Hope, and Love.
When he was left to die in the wilderness after being mauled by a bear, his hard upbringing wanted revenge. As he recovered from his near death injuries he reflected back on his religious upbringing and his good wife. He read the bible in his lonely nights and he began to realize more and more that he did not want revenge but only to just go back home. When he caught up with the men who left him to die, he forgave them without words and just went home. No shoot em up hollywood corn ball ending, but a great and realistic and very powerful ending.
What a great movie it has something for everyone. On the back cover of the Video verson it was billed as a story of revenge. It is a great deal more than that.
Rating:  -
Man in the Wilderness is a neglected and underrated film, only now released, and little short of a masterpiece. Beautiful cinematography and good direction are at its center. Superb meditative images lead one into the thoughts of a trapper critically wounded by a bear and abandoned by the trapping company he was a part of. Flashbacks acquaint us with the trapper's youth and young manhood, and frame and complement his actions in the story's present. If it has a fault it would be the ending, which seemss a bit too neat, but it must be allowed that it is carefully prepared for, and the direction is otherwise very sure. This ranks with Ridley Scott's "The Duelists" as one of the most beautifully photographed films of its period. I had truly despaired of its ever being released, and to me, this issue is a cause for celebration.
Rating:  -
I wasted my money on a fictional work that claims to be factual. It opens with grossly incorrect information: "The year is 1820. The Captain Henry Expedition has completed two years of fur trapping in the unexplored Northwest region." (Then it displays that the expedition is heading back east, etc. I need not address that.) "What occurred on this expedition is historically true."
The statements above are preposterous and thus they are not "historically true." Why are they not "historically true"? Since there are so many errors, I'll start and finish at the beginning of the movie.
(1) The expedition that it refers to did not leave from the St. Louis area until 1822-23, yet they are returning from said expedition in 1820 after having trapped for 2 years. Unless they were capable of time-travel, that statement is preposterous. Glass was attacked in 1823 and he is left to die in 1820? Please...
(2) Major Henry, in the movie, tells Bridger and Fitzgerald that if Glass were not dead by the following morning, they were to kill him. In reality, Bridger and Fitzgerald volunteered to stay (for extra money, apparently) and were with Glass for at least 5 days. This is a obvious error to one that has studied that incident and the trappers in general, thus to claim it is "historically true" is to be ignorant of history.
(3) In the movie, they do not kill him because Indians, which they can see, will hear the gunshot. One is to presume that either the Indians could hear it if they killed Glass with a knife or that Bridger and Fitzgerald were too stupid to use a knife. In reality, Henry did not tell anyone to "kill" Glass. Indeed, that command by Henry is so outlandish that is is patently laughable. Basic common sense dictates that had he made that statement he would have lost both the respect and, more importantly, the loyalty of the other trappers. They would not be loyal and trust a leader that might command that they be killed (unless they were insane). It is absurd to claim that is true.
There are so many more errors that it would be foolish to list them, yet the above 3, which are undeniable, are ample to prove the movie is fiction.
Perhaps an accurate movie will be made about the bear attack that Glass suffered at Grand River (in present-day South Dakota) in August of 1823.
Basing a movie on "Hugh Glass" (by Bradley) and "The Saga of Hugh Glass: Pirate, Pawnee, and Mountain Man" (by Myers) would be of little help, for in my opinion based upon years of study, both books are built on truth that became fables. I have read both of those fictional accounts and enjoyed them both.
Research the so-called "true" story if you choose to do so. You shall see the glaring errors, as did I. You will see that the movie is not "historically true," as did I.
Refund, please? Calling Amazon? Oh, well...
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