Dayton Daily News du lieu suivant : Dayton, Ohio • 50

i 2 kBkV flkHMHklBkF 3 AjntkY HIBitfkkkHnt' JiHi i Kr, 'Sarafina' review For a review of Sarafina, Whoopi Goldberg's new film, and an interview with its star, Ldeti Khumalo, see the Lifestyle section of today's Dayton Daily News. Last of the Mohicans Director MICHAEL MANN; Starring: DANIEL DAY LEWIS, MADELEINE STOWE, RUSSELL MEANS; 111 mtns; BEAVER VALLEY, CINEMA NORTH, CROSS P0INTE. DAYTON MALL, HUBER HEIGHTS Violence, sexual situations Excellent Fair Good -Poor Leleti Khumalo with Christopher Crowe, used both Cooper's novel and the Phillip Dunne script for the 1936 movie version of it as his own wilderness guide, but has been restricted by neither, rejecting both the racism of Cooper's book and the good guy-bad guy simplicity of the movie. In fact, this may be the first film about the settling of North America in which the French come off looking pretty good. The Last of the Mohicans also may be that rare historical drama that finds favor with all varieties of moviegoers, from those who will admire it for its physical beauty and grand sweep (it was filmed primarily in North Carolina, one of the few places left in North America that still has some 18th century forest), to those who will find its bloody tomahawk battle scenes and heart-stopping canoe chases equal to any of the action sequences in Terminator 2.

But one has to suspect that if The Last of the Mohicans becomes the large hit it deserves to be, it will depend largely on the appeal of Day-Lewis, previously known for brainy parts in such films as A Room With a View and The Unbearable Lightness of Being, as well as his Oscar turn as a cerebral palsy victim in My Left Foot. Here, Day-Lewis gets to unleash a powerful physicality, and though Stowe is its on-screen recipient, it's likely to be felt strongly in more than a few theater seats as well. His Hawkeye takes dead aim, and finds its target. WlfcttV I one were so dis-LAWSON I posed, he could Flm I nick away at Mi-Critic I cnaei Mann's new I screen version of James Fenimore Cooper's novel The Last of the Mohicans for subverting the book into a frontier romance, or for failing to give central characters like Chingachgook their due in the story, or for turning Hawkeye into some kind of Zen matinee idol. But one suspects that the only people who will fail to find pleasure in this beautiful, brutal, boisterous adventure epic will be those people who find old-fashioned adventure epics, well, too old-fashioned.

The rest of us can revel in what is certainly the best historically minded Hollywood movie since Okay, one that respects the intelligence of its story, its characters and its audience. Indeed, all but a few history buffs are likely to be at least a little confused at the film's outset, which hurtles us into the 1757 struggle" between the British and the French for the control of the continent, and the Native American and immigrant Americans affected by it. fort where the women's father, Colonel Munro (Maurice Roeves), is waging a losing battle against the encroaching French. On this perilous journey, Hawk-eye and Cora discover that they share much more in common than originally considered, which certainly could have been predicted; Day-Lewis' Hawkeye is the most striking screen hero in recent memory, lean and handsome and completely free of self-doubt. He's the post-sensitive male ideal.

Stowe's Cora is no less idealized and no less desirable; she's liberated by her realization of the natural order, and she proves Hawkeye's equal in both compassion and courage. And as they discover each other, we discover exactly what Mann is up to: He's not out to reinvent the historical epic, only to rethink it. Consequently, The Last of the Mohicans is closer in tone to Black Robe than Dances With Wolves, in that it acknowledges the brutal reality of the frontier and 18th century North American culture, but finds it no less romantic for it. Mann, who co-wrote the script Most of the immigrants have settled on the frontier to avoid the heavy hand of the British, and have forged friendships with the Indians. One of them, Nathaniel Bumpo (Daniel Day-Lewis), has forged a closer relationship than most.

Orphaned at the age of 1 or 2 when his parents were murdered, he was adopted by a hunter named Chingachgook (Russell Means), and educated in both white schools and the ways of the Mohawk His Indian name of Hawk-eye reflects both his skills with a gun and his keen observance of nature's laws. Because Hawkeye considers himself Mohawk he feels no compulsion to join the British in then-battle for territory, but when he, Chingachgook and Chingach-gook's natural son Uncas (Eric Schweig) come across the ambush of an English unit that has been betrayed by its Huron guide, Ma gua (Wes Studi), they rescue its martinet leader Heyward (Stephen Waddington) and two English sisters, Cora (Madeleine Stowe) and Alice (Jodhi May), and see them safely to the embattled Best historical drama since.