Courage

A rising author (Jason Priestly) takes his spoiled daughter and new wife (Genevieve Buechner and Andrea Roth) on a boat trip in Puget Sound, but they shipwreck on an island where there's a grizzly on the loose.

"Courage" (2009) is a family knockoff of "The Edge" (1997) and I was hoping for a worthwhile tv-budget variation but it devolved into eye-rolling dramatics and hammy acting (e.g. The redneck bear hunter).

Everything is here for a quality adventure/survival movie - a solid cast, scenic locations and a real (huge) brown bear. The author angle is good, but Priestly is removed as an active participant fairly early and the focus on the overly good-natured wife and her annoying, weepy stepdaughter can't carry the film. A more imaginative script was needed.

The film runs 1 hour, 35 minutes, and was shot in southwestern British Columbia (town) and an inlet of the Strait of Georgia outside Vancouver (shipwreck scenes).

GRADE: C-

Family in Danger is the plot for "Courage," a 2009 Lifetime movie starring Jason Priestley, Andrea Roth, and Genevieve Buechner.

Priestley plays a widower named Robert who has remarried Teresa (Roth). He is also an author who has written a book, "How To Date Brainy Women." Naturally his teenage daughter Christy (Buechner) is a resentful brat who doesn't like Teresa.

Robert suggests the family head for Bear Lake in their boat. A huge storm comes up, and Robert disappears. The two women find him, but they have pretty much wrecked the boat, and Robert has an infection in one leg and the other leg is broken. Teresa retrieves their supplies from the boat.

It turns out that Robert is married to Superwoman. She builds fires from cell phone batteries, she makes a stretcher when they have to move Robert, she applies first aid to him.

You name it, she does it. I'm surprised she couldn't repair the boat. Give her some gum and I'll bet she could have done it.

Nature in the form of a grizzly bear is their enemy, and the family finds itself trying to escape him.

This movie is completely predictable and somehow, the womens' hair looked pretty good after a storm and roughing it. Jason Priestley basically lies around being sick. I saw him at a restaurant once greeting what were obviously a family of old friends. He seemed very sweet and he's short.

Despite its predictability, I have to say it was entertaining. The acting was nothing special, but Andrea Roth is very likable, as is Priestley. How he didn't lose that infected leg is a miracle.

During the opening credits, it looks like a flood is causing serious damage for some people. This turns out to be a boating trip hit by a storm. Two days earlier, the story begins… After his new book "On Dating Brainy Women" receives a cool reception, Seattle-area author Jason Priestley (as Robert "Bob" Childs) decides to take his family out on a boating trip to Bear Island. While he is away, the book catches fire... but we'll have to wait and see if the family makes it back, to learn the good news. Bear Island turns out to be a great name for the island, because a snarling, blood-thirsty bear hangs around there. But first, we see how Mr. Priestley and his family got there. The impromptu trip began calmly. Then… the weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed. If not for the courage of the fearless crew, the "Christine" would be lost...

It's always nice when a disaster movie adds characterization. In this case, the story is about fractured family values. Priestley was a widower who wed beautiful and brainy Andrea Roth (as Teresa Martin). She's beautiful, blonde, a bit younger and incredibly bright. Bratty teenage daughter Genevieve Buechner (as Christy) asks her step-mom, "Is there anything you don't know?" When the men in the cast are incapacitated, Ms. Roth easily takes command. She shows great strength; but, when manly men are around, Roth trips and falls like a helpless lady. The whole point of the disastrous experience appears to be a divine plan to make them somehow form a family. Too bad there wasn't an easier way. Supporting mother Gabrielle Rose (as Hannah) is good, a second family seems poorly edited in, and the bear might scare small children.

**** Courage (2011-06-18) George Erschbamer ~ Andrea Roth, Jason Priestley, Genevieve Buechner, Gabrielle Rose

Widowed man (Priestley) with his second wife (Roth) and daughter from his first marriage take a boat ride and get into a storm, which destroys the craft and puts them in the wilderness for a few days. Bear chases them; second wife turns into survivalist capable of doing just about anything. Bratty daughter learns some lessons in how to behave. It's been done before and better. The film is not terrible, but it's not all that great. The acting is mediocre, writing is mediocre, scenery is beautiful, bear is scary. I'm still trying to figure out how the woman and guy's daughter manage to find heavy weight hiking boots to traipse through the woods after the boat crash. Who wears heavy-duty leather hiking boots on a boat ride? Perhaps this is explained somewhere and I just nodded off at the time.

I suspect like most people, I got conned into watching this because of Jason Priestly's name.

Still cute, but he pretty much phoned in his performance. Jerk. At least his character got a leg infection.

But his performance is stellar compared to that of almost everyone else involved in the project, from the writers to the director to the other actors, the cinematographer, the music, and the special effects group.

One sure sign of a crap movie is the fact that it's obviously made in Canada, and yet it supposed to be in some US town that nobody can name. Not on the public buildings, not on the police cars, nowhere. But, like every small US town, it does have a Scotiabank. I'm amazed they actually found a Washington license plate. Big budget, eh?

I start out assuming that a movie will be a 7, and then I start moving the score up or down from there. This one quickly dropped to 6, which typically are B movies, and then to 5, which are things that are so bad they can hardly even be called movies. I didn't give it a 4 or less, because I don't feel that the filmmakers actually intended to maliciously insult the audience.

The only part that wasn't predictable was how awesomely bad the ending was going to be. I don't think I've seen anything more recent than the Gilligan's Island TV series that actually uses sped-up playback to turn a walking bear into a running bear. On Bear Island. Whatever.

If you're in Canada, and particularly in BC, you probably helped pay for this piece of junk, via its tax credits or film incentives. Are you having fun yet?