Alien Thunder

Average movie which only intermittently comes to live. A good performance from Sutherland, and it's always a delight to see Chief Dan George.

Not sure why they got Kevin McCarthy for such a small if pivitol role.

Imdb trivia reminded me that the movie featured the lead actors of the original invasion of the body snatchers and it's remake ie MCarthy and Sutherland. McCarthy had a small role in the remake, playing the same character as in the orignal. His appearance is more brief than in this movie, but it's a better one Note I prefered the remake to the original. I mus see if I can anything more about this story, and see how accurrately the movie portrays it.

There may have been something of a good chase film here, based on a true story about a Cree Indian who turned cop killer when confronted by the Mounties over a stolen cow, but the version I saw from Digiview is so amazingly badly transferred that it's almost unwatchable. It's too bad, simply because a clean, crisp version--not edited by some lunkhead in Lower Slobovia--may have saved it from my donate-to-the-library pile.

On the whole though, it's not a bad story. A mid-thirties Donald Sutherland appears to have made this movie as a favor to his native Canada; he couldn't have been paid much because the whole movie looks as if it was made by a university film class rich with a grant from a provincial arts endowment. Sutherland is believable, and so are the group of Canadian actors and actresses, both Native and European.

The only bad performance is by a great screen presence--Chief Dan George. It was either the transfer and lack of scan and pan or no direction for the chief that robbed George's character of doing much more than looking inscrutable, usually almost off screen (because of the lack of scan and pan). In fact, there are whole chunks of the movie where you can hear people cooking or slogging through slush or gurgling from a gunshot wound, but you can't see them because nobody taught that guy in the transfer booth how to operate the doohickeys on the master board.

I had a heart procedure done last summer--nothing huge, but I'm good for another 40,000 miles. Anyway, while I was getting zapped by a high-tech soldering iron, I was strapped down on this table called an ironing board. I couldn't move my head; my vision was confined to the thousand-pound x-ray machines above me. Very unpleasant (except for the end result). Not having scan and pan is something like that. You so want to look around the sides of your screen to see what the hell you're missing. I wanted to sit up, push the x-rays out of the way, and ask the cardiologist what he was up to.

I think that's why they strapped me down.

Oh, well. What you can see, from time to time, is the provincial equivalent of some beautiful plains-state wilderness. Cold and raw, inviting to visit.

It's still not worth the buck. If this sounds appealing, try to find a decent copy.

I feel like this would have been a much better film if it had been filmed more clearly. I am a fan of revisionist westerns and I like the bare bones story that this particular film told. My only complaint with it is that it was filmed poorly. The actors were excellent and there aren't nearly enough stories about the northwest mounted police, outside of some 1930's era horse operas. I feel there are hundreds of stories that could be told about the northwest mounted as they are famous worldwide for always getting their man. This, in my opinion is a fine story of a man seeking vengeance for his friend but I also think that it would have been a much better, if not far more recognized film if it had only been filmed better. I understand that westerns of this particular era were filmed in a more grainy way to conjure up a more authentic air the same way we would look at photographs of this era but this film unfortunately just seems to say that the producers were short on money and were trying to cut corners. It's really a shame because I truly believe that it was a fine story with very great actors and filled with historical and exciting events.

Donald Sutherland who was Canadian never misses a chance to boost the film industry in his native country. With this in mind he starred in Alien Thunder about the true story of Cree Indian who was arrested for some minor charge, but resented confinement and escaped. The Cree, Gordon Tootoosis kills Mountie Kevin McCarthy who is Sutherland's partner.

In Canada as well as in the USA when you're partner is killed you're supposed to do something about it. That's what The Maltese Falcon teaches us. Sutherland feels the same way, but the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were never in the same kind of numbers that our US Cavalry were, they didn't need to be. It was a more solitary occupation with them having to cover the vast wilderness in this case of Canada's Northwest Territory.

I didn't see a particularly good print of the film, it had a really grainy and washed out look to it. That could have been corrected, but the rather dull telling of the story was not something better cinematography or editing could have remedied. The performances by the cast were sincere and the Indians were as realistically portrayed as ever been on screen.

An interesting story that was ruined with a dull treatment.

I only gave this movie a 4, but that's mainly because it was kind of slow. I like Chief Dan George, so that was a plus right there. I read a comment from one of the commentors and he mentioned how grainy the picture was and I pretty much experienced the same thing. However I thought it added realism to the movie. The dialogue, the sets, the wardrobe, the scenery. It almost looked like someone had a video camera back in those days and actually filmed what was taking place. It's always a good thing when movies use real Indians instead of actors that are painted up to look like Indians. You would think that I would have givin' this movie a higher rating with all the positive things I've said, but it is a movie to fall asleep too. I got this movie in a 20 movie pack, so what the heck.