One Dead Indian

This was the best portrayal i have ever seen Dakota House do.

I think the family of Dudley George should be very proud of this movie which will hopefully bring more awareness to all the wrong doings of our justice system. With more movies about aboriginals being mistreated by the police perhaps it will open up enough eyes to make some good changes to our hypocritical justice system.

Could there possibly be a movie in the making about the starlight tour victims??????????????PLEASE!!!

In closing, I'd just like to say Dakota House should get a Grammy award for his performance in this movie.....and all the other actors were awesome too....I cried through the last hour!!!

It was hard to watch this, remembering the events, the places and the people so well. I wish that more had been shown about the events leading up to that terrible night, but the complicity of government officials was at least pointed out. I found the whole thing too low key, but noted that several actors indeed got the strength and humour of the people. Dakota House did a pretty decent job of Dudley, while Gary Farmer was very good as Judas, and Jennifer Podemski was brilliant at recreating Gina's reactions to the shooting of her son on the bus. For anyone who thinks the bus was sensationalized, I saw it a few days after the events, and I was amazed those two kids didn't die. Like I said, it was too low key - this was a night of horror that continues to haunt many people, but we only really felt it in brief seconds when Dudley was arriving at the hospital and Gina and Judas were trying to get help for their son. At least you saw that these were real people, good people, who had a real injustice to fight and that the way things played out was a blot on the name of Ontario institutions and all Canadians.

This was a solid effort that pulled no punches, sort of a docu-drama about one of the darker pages of Ontario history, the shooting of an unarmed Indian protester by the Ontario Provincial Police during the native occupation of Ipperwash Provincial Park on Lake Huron. It seems accurate (from my recollection of the events) and although it perhaps wisely does not attempt to portray Premier Michael Harris, the "tough guy" behind the shooting, it does use an actual clip of him in the Ontario Legislature and it reconstructs an actual phone call which revealed the political pressure that was put on the OPP. It's a gutsy and well done film but I doubt that CTV will be getting any commendations from the OPP. Although their senior people come off reasonably well, those "on the ground" that night come off looking a little worse than storm troopers. This is the sort of thing CBC does well now and then. It's encouraging that CTV now also occasionally runs good Canadian stuff like this instead of its usual diet of US trash. For an Ontario audience the story is quite clear. Elsewhere in Canada and certainly outside the country, it may need a little more backgrounding.

As background, in 1942, the Federal government appropriated lands from a native band in Ontario for military purposes and gave them $50,000. In 1981 they gave them an additional $2.5 million and are negotiating to return the lands.

In 1995 a group of native protesters cut the fence at a nearby Provincial Park (here they are called protesters - if anyone else did this they would be trespassers or terrorists)and proceeded to occupy the park. When the Ontario Provincial Police attempted to regain the lands, a mêlée ensued and a young native man was shot.

The movie tells the story of the events with the objectivity of Michael Moore in Fahrenheit 9/11. The natives and left wingers will love the spin while conservatives will hate it.

The acting is weak throughout, though not surprising given the lacklustre cast. Dakota House plays an angry young man (ooo - what a HUGE stretch for Dakota), Gordon Tootoosis is there (he is always there when they film a native movie in Canada) and Gary Farmer is his generally enjoyable self (some may remember him from the first season of Forever Knight).

All in all a pretty mediocre production released as the Ipperwash hearings are resumed (coincidence I'm sure) - with the Premier (when the incident occurred) slated as an upcoming witness.

This is a decent movie of the week. It is nothing special like most dramatic movie of the week shows, with a limited budget and some overacting by some of the actors etc. It is a bit too melodramatic at times but it is still believably dramatic because it is based on the real events of Dudley George and the standoff that happened. This is good to watch because it shows a lot of the events that happened during the standoff and we all know what happens but it shows how things got to where they did, and why. I'm not sure how accurate and true the story is because I don't know that much about it but it's a good story with some real drama and you could do a lot worse with your time than watching this made for TV movie.