Review of Iron Will (1994) by Sergio E — 29 Jan 2010

I seem to always like everything with animals in the story but this movies is not that bad it is alittle corny and it feels kind of sluggish in the script but it's manegeable!!

When Will Stoneman's father dies, he is left alone to take care of his mother and their land. Needing money to maintain it, he decides to join a cross country dogsled race. This race will require days of racing for long hours, through harsh weather and terrain. This young man will need a lot of courage and a strong will to complete this race.

The acting is great, the screenplay is all right, history aside it's not too bad. After all, history can be bleak sometimes, and hope springs eternal, we can always dream and imagine right? For film score fans like me, the music, which I always am interested in, is not so bad, the main theme is nice, but it's not as good as the music from Interview With The Vampire or Forrest Gump.

Well, it was good. True it had some bad Disney unrealistic heart-jerking story in it, especially at the end. The bad guys were really Disney evil, but the rest of the film worked.

Kevin Spacey gives his best at whatever role he tackles, and this is no exception. The sledding scenes are very good and it is really cold - you can feel it, and so can the actors judging by the breath.

Based on a true story, this journey begins in South Dakota in 1917. Will Stoneman is a 17 year old young man who loses his father. Will is left with devastated until one morning he notices a flyer of the Carnival Derby (a dog sled race from Winnipeg, Canada to St. Paul Minnesota) in which his father was thinking of competing. After getting his mother, Maggie Stoneman, to comply, she gets Ned Dodd, an Indian who lives with the family, to get Will straight into training. Once Will arrives to the competition, he is greeted with a ridicule of laughter, yet do they know how bad he wants to win. Will that be enough to get Will from the beginning to end of the race and win, in one piece through the meanest, toughest stretch of land, and weather conditions that he has yet to embark on?