Dated

Rating: 3/10 (16 September 2008)

I've only just got around to seeing this in 2008 and it really is dated nonsense. The whole time I was getting mixed up with that similar one about fishing, but I don't know which one came first.
What's wrong with it? Well, mostly the fact that it's such an American cliché. The actors try bravely to make something of it, but while Anthony Hopkins' Welsh accent was believable for the period, I was incredulous when he suddenly appeared to switch to Irish for no apparent reason. The anarchist sentiments also left me feeling very uncomfortable: isn't Montana where all the survivalists and anarchists live? The film appears to have been released a year before the Oklahoma bombing; I doubt if these people would have been so glorified afterwards.
If the music wasn't a cliché when the film was made then it certainly is now: all those sweeping massed violins just make me queasy.
The icing on the cake, though, is the noble savage depiction of the Native Americans. Patronising, 'wouldn't-it-have-been-nice-if', imaginary nonsense, straight from the Dances With Wolves genre.