Waste of time

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

When I first heard of this movie years ago, I thought that this would be the movie to finally connect with a Canadian (and international) audience. It had a budget significantly higher than the typical Canadian movie, a fairly well-known American actor in the lead, and support of a major theatrical distributor. However, the distributor didn't give the movie much of a release, and did little to market it. The other day I found a DVD copy of the movie in the library and decided to finally watch it to see if I could determine why the movie got little push.It didn't take me long to start seeing why the distributor probably got nervous about the movie. While it's not an awful movie - it will do if you are pressed to find a movie and can't find anything better - it's kind of a disappointment. Despite the money spent, a lot of the movie looks more like a CBC TV drama instead of theatrical quality. The two central characters don't really spark when placed together, a lot of that being because the Inuit woman character can't speak much English. The movie also keeps cutting back to characters in civilization for no apparent reason except maybe to pad out the running time. There is some nice scenery (though it starts to look all alike after a while), and occasional excitement, but for the most part the movie feels very restrained in most departments. Little wonder then why the movie never got a theatrical release outside of Canada and got thrown away on its native soil.

This movie has quite a bit in common with Never Cry Wolf. Farley Mowat wrote it. Charles Martin Smith directed this film and starred in Never Cry Wolf. The main character in both is the North. In both the hero faces ghastly ordeals. In the Snow Walker, the ordeals are much more life threatening. The same wolves appear in both.The casting is interesting. The actors looks familiar, but you can't quite place them. When you look them up on IMDb you figure out why. They are playing roles quite unlike the ones you usually see them in. That boy who looks like Michael Bublé really is Michael Bublé. The hero Barry Pepper you saw playing RFK. James Cromwell you saw in Star Trek playing the time-travelling Zefram Cochran, the inventor of warp drive. The movie would have great appeal to ten year olds because of the gross-out scenes of eating raw caribou guts, raw fish, raw groundhogs and aged Spam. It has a Disney-like old Yeller ending that might be too overwhelming for younger kids. The credits claim no animals were harmed though I was somewhat incredulous that I had not seen fish killed and three caribous butchered with pointed stakes. The butchering and raw-meat-eating scenes were so real I had to leave the room. Despite his reputation, our hero was a perfect gentleman. There was no sex and no sexual innuendo. Had they put it in, the movie would have completely put off the ten-year old audience. The mosquitoes mysteriously missing from Never Cry Wolf appear in this movie in one of the most terrifying scenes in cinema. Hitchcock eat your heart out. Oddly though they disappear without explanation. The hero starts out as a childish, petulant, self-indulgent Charlie Sheen sort of character. But the ordeal and the influence of the young girl's Inuit culture matures him. The downsides. A young Inuit girl is presented as on death's door, probably TB. Yet her eyebrows are elegantly tweezed and her face made up as if she just left some expensive shop at the mall. No matter what the ordeal she had just endured, she appeared freshly changed and clean in the next scene. It just was not believable. She marches hundreds of miles, climbs, builds fires, goes trapping and fishing, prepares skins with energy I wish I had, all while supposedly about to die.There is a ham-fisted product placement for Nestlés. The hero even sings their jingle. At least the Inuit girl stares at the chocolate as if it were poison.There is a bit of the supernatural in this movie, but not overwhelming. I don't like it when that mush is inserted into young brains. Leave it for clearly silly movies where it is clear it is not to be taken seriously. One of the culture clashes was what you are supposed to do about the possessions of the dead. Charlie, the hero, a rationalist, said you use them to survive, obviously. The girl believed, to respect the dead, you must bury them. She prevails. I found that improbable and infuriating. They were in deep trouble. This was no time for pleasantries. Charlie was too much of a chauvinist to surrender so meekly.

The Snow Walker is a wonderful tale of survival in an unforgiving setting. This film masterfully directed by Charles Martin Smith is about a bush pilot Charlie Halliday(Barry Pepper) is haunted by memories of the war and takes on a immature party attitude. He is assigned to take some drums to a spot on the Arctic coast where a party of Inuit give him some ivory to take a sick girl, Kanaalaq(Annabella Piugattuk). Well on the way to Yellowknife the plane crash lands in the middle of the arctic wilderness. At first Charlie is cavalier thinking he knows what to do and is not endeared to Kanaalaq. The story is how there love grows (not romantically but on a spiritual level)and Charlie grows as a man and becomes a different man.The acting is done well nothing over the top but very believable, the cinematography is breathtaking and the story is endearing.Grade B+

I picked this movie up from the video store as I was in a hurry and could not decide what to choose so just grabbed the first thing. I didn't watch it for two days and was on the point of taking it back unseen but then gave it a whirl as an afterthought. I have to say that this is probably one of the most beautiful films I have ever watched. The acting was superb especially Barry Pepper and the girl Annabella Piugattuck. Not sure what a throat singer is but she is one, she can fish, she hunts seal and walrus, and makes clothing out of caribou hides- holy smokes!. If ever she's looking for a husband I'm her man although my wife might have a thing or two to say about that. Not only all that but she can act amazingly and she's gorgeous. I loved the photography too, utterly stunning, a visual feast. My only slight gripe was that there was just a little too much music/film score. Some of those scenes especially at the end would have benefited from total silence. I would liked to have seen him reunited with his buddies, was cut a little short there. Just a personal preference but this is a truly wonderful film and work of art and I am recommending it to all of my friends.