The Mountie (2011)

In 'honour' of the woeful poetry a little girl reads out at regular intervals in Way Of The West, or The Mountie, or The Ranger, or whatever they're calling it these days, I thought I'd compose my own dreadful little ode:Clichés abound No Surprises in store This Film Is a plodding boreGood guy with white horse Baddies on black Colour coding This movie doesn't lackThe hero here Is totally vanilla No personality traits Dialogue just fillerThe tedium extends To the shoot outs Stay awake? I have my doubtsBut before I take My blessed nap Let me warn you Of this piece o'crapIt's in the 99p shop Taking up space Just ignore it and leave With a smile on your faceThere we go. Wordsworth, Hughes, Byron... you better watch out... 3/10

It's not often that I praise Canadian film, particularly when it's funded by the usual scoundrels Astral and the like... yet this has actually been a good year, and I'm having to rethink.This is a good film, and certainly deserves more than the absurd 4.8 it currently gets on IMDb.Let's get the bad out of the way:The childish sing-song poetry narration was annoying. It seems there entirely to pretend that this is a movie for Canada's schoolkids. I guess if this shows up in schools, we'll know if it worked.And whoever decided the fonts to use for "The End" and for the opening and closing credits (except the scrolling ones) knows nothing about fonts and should be kept as far away from a keyboard as possible.And what magical property does fire have, that it knows it should only burn the poppy field, and then stop? It's not clear why Wade had to shoot his horse. Presumably, the horse was wounded, but I don't recall ever seeing that happen.Finally, it should have been made clear why gold made the river smell, and why people were falling ill. Was it sulphur? That's a lot of nitpicking. But aside from that, the truth is that this is a good western, comparable to 60s spaghetti westerns. What makes it unique is that it's in a Canadian context (Yukon Territory), and of course it's filmed with current techniques which allow for a bit more (but not too much) gore.It's a quiet film, which draws you into the story, characters, and landscape. I never once doubted Andrew Walker's portrayal of Wade. The cinematography is great. And the short running time (less than 90 minutes) is perfect for the story they're telling.I look forward to more like this, but with a bit more fine tuning.

To the American reviewer who thought it was a poor western movie, I would agree, it was a poor American Western movie, however, this is NOT the United States.Firstly, let's get a few facts straight. There was no Chinese opium den IN that settlement that the Mountie showed up at in the beginning. That was a flashback to what got him a year in the stockade. He got drugged up, picked up his gun when the little girl came to tell him about what was going on and shot up a bunch of Chinese bad guys. A year and a bit later, the Northwest Mounted Police dispatch his butt up to the Yukon territories (Part of Canada) to survey the best location for a new police outpost. (They called it a fort to placate the States)**********************SPOILERS************************ The Mountie managed to figure the whole thing out because he was concerned the people were getting sick. It was a hotbed of crime going on in that small settlement with former miner turned priest to cover all the bad stuff he was doing, running the place.Then you had a bunch of guys that were trying to take over, hence the need to grow opium to keep them away from what was REALLY going on.Oh, incidentally, MANY people from Russia, the Ukraine and Latvia settled in Canada and to be blunt, many would prefer the Yukon territories simply because it was a land closer to where they came from. So, not that big a stretch to have Russians and Latvians up there.Our main character doing a bad Clint Eastwood and the flashback bit about the Chinese being a little too confusing made me take away points from this movie but all in all, a very WELL DONE movie that is more than worth your time to watch. ENJOY!

I have to admit that the alternate (USA DVD) title "The way of the west" doesn't speak to the movies content. I am certain the only reason they created an alternate title for USA distribution is because "The Mountie" or "Way of the Yukon" or some similarly Canadian title would have little meaning or frame of reference for American viewers. Having said that, I can see how it being in IMDb's category Westerns could be a bit misleading and probably why other reviewers were disappointed. I wouldn't really drop it into the drama category either.The cinematography is predictably well done, and given the raw nature of the Canadian Territories there are some great backgrounds. I agree that the lead actor (Walker) really does lay on the Clint Eastwood a bit thick. And unnecessarily so. he could have pulled off the role just as easily and likely more believably in a less strained manner.As for continuity, I had no problems following the story line. I might question the historical accuracy of opium cultivation (which seems to be implied) in the Yukon, but there definitely was an opium trade. One also has to take into account that the story basically takes place in the middle of nowhere so character interaction is limited to the few people in the camp (its not a town). I found the writing competent and the story engaging. I often shy away from Canadian movies due to their track record in terms of quality, but I didn't find The Mountie disappointing. It not a masterpiece either, but it is entertaining. The cast was well placed and the performances believable. Some familiar faces with Jessica Pare (who was awesome in "Suck"), Pastko and Buza.All in all its worth the rental fee, I won't be adding it to my DVD collection, but it was enjoyable enough for me. I give it a 6/10. Just don't expect "Hang "em high".