Alien Thunder

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.

Alien Thunder is a 1974 Canadian film that deals with the conflict between European and Indigenous (Cree) people who already populated regions of Canada and USA, focusing on the search for a Cree individual (Almighty Voice) who kills a cow that did not belong to him, kills a military in the process and becomes a fugitive. As has always happened in colonization processes in history, the Indigenous people lose a lot in the clash with the Europeans. The film does not make very clear some details of an event that was crucial for the development of the story and, also, does not develop well the interpersonal relationships between several of the participants in the story. In my opinion, it is not a good film - at most, it is regular.

Donald Sutherland plays Mountie Dan Candy as if the character he knew he was in a movie and kept pushing it to be an action/adventure film, or a revenge movie, or a revisionist Western with a hero who could make a difference - but he's not. He's in an historical docudrama about a series of related domestic tragedies. Which means that the outcome is predetermined, and after insisting he has some power to effect matters for the better, he is left with the Indians to witness the end unfold.

This is the clue to the real strength of the film, which many would find its greatest fault. It is indeed slow, in order to accommodate an elegiac visual style. Tone and effect - essentially of sorrow, and of powerlessness over the historic inevitability of it all - form the real substance of the movie.

It's understandable that such is not to the taste of many audiences. But the film makers do deserve credit for attempting to approach their material in this fashion, rather than opt for something more profitably "exciting." That said, it must be admitted that a large scale production like this is operating on what appears to be a crash budget, and that doesn't help. It certainly didn't help in the preservation of the film, the available print on DVD is pretty bad. But occasionally the cinematography rises to the majesty that the script and director are calling for it, and eerie and beautiful moments pop up in the film, often when you least expect it.

Not really a success, but by no means simply a failure.

I have low expectations when I watch a movie released on Mill Creek. It's not like I surrender a substantial amount of money to purchase a Mill Creek release. Plus, I am happy to be able to view movies from the past that have fallen into relative obscurity.

In order to keep costs down I don't expect, nor anticipate, a top notch transfer. And it can even be a little fun watching whatever scratched up print Mill Creek has procured.

Nevertheless, I was deeply disappointed by the absolute total lack of effort in the transfer for Dan Candy's Law.

As fas as I can tell, you somehow obtained the worst print possible (from Chief Dan George's basement, perhaps?) and decided to project it on a dirty bed sheet you acquired from an intern and then video taped it with a 1983 Sony video camera.

I'm guessing pan and scan is too costly, as well as going to the inconvenience of maintaining the original aspect ratio of the movie with a letterbox. But still, the transfer of Dan Candy's Law indicates complete and absolute indifference to your product.

I loved how a watermark with the Mill Creek logo appeared every so often in the bottom right hand corner. It was if Mill Creek were concerned that the viewer might forget who was responsible for their incompetence.

I can only hope that the majority of viewers of this film don't have to experience it via the Mill Creek release. Seeing half of Donald Sutherland's face half of the time is not a rewarding cinematic experience.

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.