The Last of the Mohicans review

 Number 474 on the top 1000 films of all time is Michael Mann's epic historical drama film 'The Last of the Mohicans.'

Nathaniel 'Hawkeye' Poe (Daniel Day-Lewis) is an English man raised by the Mohawk tribe in 18th century America. When he falls in love with Cora Munro (Madeline Stowe,) the daughter of Colonel Munro (Maurice Roeves) of the British army, he's dawn into a colonial war between England and France. Meanwhile Colonel Munro and, by extension, Cora and her sister Alice (Jodhi May) are being hunted down by Magua (Wes Studi,) a Huron with a grudge to bear.

Never mind the Last of the Mohicans, I thought I would be the last of the Lintons by the time I finished watching this film. It was only two hours long, but it could have easily been an hour and a half, if it wasn't for all the bloody slow-motion. Don't get me wrong, slow motion can be great when used correctly, but not when it's used for every other shot. We don't need to see the characters walking or riding their horses in slow-motion. Even the fight scenes were in slow motion which became tedious after a while. They're fight scenes, they're supposed to be fast and chaotic.

Beyond this, the film was slowly paced. There was a lot of talking for what was supposed to be a drama. You get the colonials fretting about their ranches being attacked or Munro fretting about his daughters or the colonials plotting to desert the base. There was so much talking that when the action scenes finally happened I had almost switched off. And the less said about all the staring in the fight scenes the better.

The music did nothing to help the pacing either. Large parts of the film including the slow-motion scenes were set to a grandiose, often cheesy, instrumental score, which made the film even slower.

As for Day-Lewis, when he was on screen, I thought he was good, but I also think he was severely underused. This was weird as he is the main character. But it took him a while to appear, and even while writing this review, I was struggling to remember his character's name. But I did like the supporting cast. Madeline Stowe who played Cora had a good agency about her, stealing a pistol and later shooting an Indian who's going to kill her.

And even her sister Alice, rather than be a prisoner of Magua, takes her fate into her own hands by jumping from a cliff. Then we have Major Heyward (Steven Waddington) who goes through a nice redemption arc. He proposes to Cora only to have him reject him and then he quickly becomes jealous of her growing closer with Nathaniel. The two become enemies, uneasy allies and eventually Heyward sacrifices himself to Magua in exchange for Lora's life. Although I found that a bit difficult to believe. Magua, not only wants Munro dead, but also his bloodline. Why would he let Cora go instead of killing her?

If a film stars Daniel Day-Lewis, you would expect to enjoy it, but the Last of the Mohicans didn't do ti for me. Too much slow motion and grandiose music.