Grey Owl (1999)

User Rating:

5.7/10   

Director:

Richard Attenborough

Writer:

William Nicholson (screenplay)

Release Date:

10 September 1999 (Spain)

Genre:

Biography | Drama | Western

Tagline:

He Fought To Change The World

Plot:

The story of the life and work of the Canadian fur trapper turned conservationist who claimed to be a Native American.

Plot Keywords:

Trapper | Beaver | Canada | National Park | Native American

Awards:

1 win & 5 nominations

Cast

Pierce Brosnan	...	Archie Grey Owl
Stewart Bick	...	Cyrus Finney
Vlasta Vrana	...	Harry Champlin
Annie Galipeau	...	Pony
Neil Kroetsch	...	First Hunter
Serge Houde	...	Second Hunter
Peter Colvey	...	Hotel Guest
Nathaniel Arcand	...	Ned White Bear
Jacques Lussier	...	Hotel Manager
Lee-Roy Jacobs	...	Hotel Porter
Jimmy Herman	...	Chief Pete Misebi
John Dunn-Hill	...	Sim Hancock
Graham Greene	...	Jim Bernard
Gordon Masten	...	Gus Mitchell
Chip Chuipka	...	First Trapper

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for some sensuality/nudity.

Runtime:

Canada:117 min | Spain:120 min | UK:118 min

Country:

UK | Canada

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Certification:

Finland:K-7 | Australia:PG | South Korea:12 | Germany:o.Al. | Spain:T | UK:PG | USA:PG-13

Filming Locations:

Chelsea, Québec, Canada

Company:

Ajawaan Productions

Trivia:

Filmed in 1998, but not released until the end of 2000.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: When Grey Owl's publisher Champlin arrives by airplane, to convince Grey Owl to go on tour in England, the airplane shown is clearly a DeHavilland DHC-2 "Beaver" on floats. This scene is set in approximately 1935, but the DeHavilland Beaver did not make its first flight until 1947.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Holiday (2006)

Great photography

I got to say it has fantastic photography, the camera really catches the landscape, beautiful! At first it cracked me up to see Pierce Brosnan with long hair, never mind the pigtails, but you get over that pretty quickly. He does a good job considering you do not think Pierce Brosnan and native American Indian dude and place them together, therefore pulling it off pretty well.

My only complaint was Pony. Pony severely irritated me. I get she's supposed to bring some kind of revelation to Archie but she does it in a most annoying way possible (to me personally). I hated seeing Archie, man of the forest reduced to being whipped by some ignorant fool (and lets face it, in the ways of the forest, she is ignorant). I also didn't find the idea that Archie could stand being even near her believable, considering everything she does is out of pure stubborn ignorance and idiocy. This isn't Annie Galipeau's fault, as the script is asking her to be stubborn etc etc. I really do hate the cliche stubborn woman who 'bravely' battles the elements and determinedly refuses to 'turn back', annoying the heck out of the main character, when really she should have stayed home and knitted. Overall, I give this movie 6 and a half out of 10. It was cool and all but I was forced to take off 3 and a half points because I was getting increasingly frustrated with Pony.