The Mountie
The Mountie with a run time of just around 80 minutes feels a bit overstuffed. The movie as too much to show yet it has nothing really concrete in it. This movie presents itself as a vital source of Canadian history but it is not so in reality. The truth is that it is nothing more than a teen age schoolhouse film that ventures into a bit nasty but a tad more interesting revenge thriller. Director and co-writer Wyeth Clarkson has made a very ambitious attempt to make the movie a good one without knowing where they want to go actually. Only thing that they could manage are gorgeous wallpapers of the film which may find some takers surely. The film begins when Corporal Wade Grailing (Andrew W. Walker), a disgraced mountain law enforcer doing his duty of patrolling the Yukon stumbles upon a little girl trying to shoot a man hanging from a tree. This sudden discovery leads him to a gypsy camp comprising of Latvians, Americans and a bunch of Asians supervised by a holy man (Earl Pastko) who tries to hide his crops of opium by refusing to take the cop’s help in treating the sick and the dying. Grailing, being himself heavily addicted to opium has to options in front of him- one to turn a blind’s eye to the injustice prevailing in the camp or to carry out his duty legally in bringing the illegal enterprise to an end and saving the sick and dying people in the camp. The best things about the movie are the valley of Yukon with its gorgeous scenery that lights up the big screen with glimpses of Mother Nature. Disappointingly the pros fail to outweigh the cons of the movie which are even more prominent as the film goes to the 2nd half. It’s a good example of what happens if someone overdoes a topic. The sense of national pride which the film evokes borders uncomfortably on being pandering and outright racist. The good characters portrayed in the film are weak women and children who need saving and all their hopes are pinned on one white man who does all the work. This makes the movie grossly one-sided and thus truly unbearable. People having the habit to watch movies online or downloading from the net may try to watch The Mountie. In fact it’s an ideal movie to sit at home and downloading from net or watching online. The nature lovers can try taking the wallpapers which is amazing but it’s not a very good idea to go to the theatres to watch this film.
