If there's one movie you can watch over and over again it The Last of the Mohicans. It's Daniel-Day Lewis, Madeleine Stowe, great soundtrack, fine adventure story, there's love of course, charismatic antagonist Wes Studi (Magua), and a fine british soldier Major Duncan Heyward by Steven Waddington...
It never impressed me the first time I watched it. Perhaps I was too much into present day cinematography, and I never really got it in Mohicans. But it nevertheless left me with great aftertaste. A simple, but delicious meal could do that... So I watched it once again, and again, and again... I realized that Michael Mann style is something to enjoy years after. Just as I would watch Heat from time to time, I do re-watch Mohicans...
It's the way he does it. The drama is all in the James Fenimore Cooper's story, but it's also Mann's approach and style that makes it so great. It may seem slow-paced, while in fact so much is happening that you may find it hard to follow as the story's drama twists and turns before you can realize it all in full. That's why there's so much to think about once you're done watching...
Oh yeah, and the soundtrack is more than fulfilling. The moment you feel the drama of each person and take their sides, the music rightfully underlines each moment and death and tragedy of the characters. Magua is no bad. His kids were slaughtered, and can you really blame him for taking revenge on his foe? Colonel Munro is sympathetic, but can you really side with him once you learn that he was in charge of a conflict where Magua's kids were killed? Major Heyward seems a prick ready to hang Hawkeye for mutiny, yet saves him and Cora giving himself up to the tribes execution by fire...
Cora's younger sister seems a bit stupid by jumping off of a cliff, yet the horror she saw within such a short time explains it all. And the way they fight that seems a bit too fast... Well they fight to the death, does it have to be long as in Transformers? There's so much aggravation and grief in every fighting scene that you can't help yourself saying: Perhaps that's ehat it is like... A horrified father Chingachgook who sees his only son dying has all the power to slaughter Magua and win over... He is the Last of the Mohicans...
If you haven't seen it do it. Michael Mann at his best. It's the movie that has everything we love about him. Directing, acting, cinematography, love story, true drama, story and characters that are just as complex as life is. There's no real bad or evil, no real good or perfect, there's just people, there's just life. Motivations are complex, behavior is unpredictable,and you are never sure if you won or lost...
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