Vincent Atkins

Undoubtedly, this Herb Wallerstein helmed project started out with the absolute best of intentions... namely those of making a good movie. Unfortunately, and perhaps not surprisingly, the movie failed to present a solid, cohesive story. The very notion of a theme on Sasquatch (or Bigfoot, which this movie refers to the creature as) needs to be treated with the utmost attention to verisimilitude to facilitate a good outcome, a factor which was grossly overlooked. The cast was headed by some well-known, but not necessarily star quality actors and actresses of the day, such as Bo Svenson, Clint Walker, Yvette Mimieux and Sylvia Sidney. Despite a particularly poor concept and script, not one of the aforementioned actors managed to hand in a single convincing performance. In all likelihood, that could be contributed to poor direction and hectic scheduling during the shoot. Most of those involved probably leave this movie off of their resumes. A lot of time was spent filming people skiing down snowy slopes, which did very little to advance the story overall. In typical Hollywood fashion of that era, the creature's actions were mostly presented via a first-person view, and any scenes that showed the creature were either long shots or very brief, shaky images. A rather hackneyed device was used to present the monster's kills, namely a freeze screen of someone screaming just before the frame fades to red. As a horror movie it failed to offer any real scares. This movie was later remade in 2011... I can't imagine why.

Having not read the novel I am left to the tender mercies of Tykwer's interpretation of the story coupled with Tom Hanks' seemingly bottomless well of talent to portray likeable characters. Since viewing the movie, I have reflected back upon several scenes and played them over again in my mind's eye. That is one of the benchmarks of what I feel makes for compelling cinema... you continue to cogitate what you've experienced, particularly if you find previously unrealized connections and deeper meaning from the viewing. I usually don't make specific critical comments unless I view a film a second time with predisposed knowledge of the story while asking myself, given the opportunity, what different choices I might make as a director. The tale rings largely true and authentically presents socioeconomic glitches that exist between the Western and Arabic worlds. The cast was well chosen and the setting was resplendent with verisimilitude. I will watch again, keeping a close eye on the editing, but I doubt anything will crop up that would cause me to change my 4-star rating.