Review of The Last of the Mohicans (1992) by Kevin D — 14 Jul 2010

Some movies that I see are simply impossible to get into: Miami Vice, The Verdict, The Last Samurai, Syriana, We Were Soldiers, and countless others. The LAst of the Mohicans can now be added to that list.

My boy Michael Mann directed this movie and he directs two types of movies: stylish and character driven movies (The Insider, Heat, Collateral) and movies that you don't care about for an hour and a half that don't get good until the last 20 minutes (Miami Vice, The Last of the Mohicans).

I recommend that you all somehow view this movie, but just fast forward to the 1 hour and 37 minute mark and start from there. I promise you, from that point on the movie is very good and you won't miss a thing.

The beginning of this movie played out like a really boring and dramatized BBC miniseries. It was about aristocratic British soldiers and the French interacting or something, to be honest I didn't really care.

There wasn't much of a narrative for the first hour and a half. It didn't help that I knew nothing about the characters. They were just caricatures that can be seen in similar "freedom fighter" or "cowboys and indians" movies only with less personality.

Daniel Day Lewis was absolutely wasted in this movie. All he did was run around and attempt to act heroic. His acting chops could have been better used else where. This wasn't like The Crucible either where Day Lewis's performance was good despite the bad film, Day Lewis really did not do much in this movie.

The beautiful Madeline Stowe didn't do much here either. I might just have a prejudice towards these period pieces that criticize the aristocratic society (Gladiator, Braveheart) while they attempt to tell cliched action stories.

I knew going into this movie that I didn't like the genre, but I wanted to give it a shot since I love Michael Mann and Daniel Day Lewis. Unfortunately, the movie sucked. I fell asleep for about a half hour during the movie.

I fell asleep at the 1 hour mark and woke up at the 1 hour and 37 minute mark. I considered walking out on the movie, but I really wanted to give it a shot. If I had walked out on the movie, I would have given it the lowest grade I could have given it, but I stuck it out (even though I fell asleep) and was rewarded with a nice 20 minute sequence at the end that had some good action and acting.

This is a boring movie with an awful narrative and tired and lazy cinematography (a la David Cronenberg), but hey, at the very minimum, it might be worth it to rent this movie to ONLY watch the last 20 minutes.

Remember, just start the movie at the 1 hour and 37 minute mark and you'll enjoy a 20 minute short film. It's just like how Miami Vice was incomprehensible and confusing for the first 2 hours but good with 20 minutes left.