It’s 1757 and the French and Indian War is underway. The British are recruiting Colonial Americans for the war, but white frontiersman Nathaniel “Hawkeye” Poe and the Mohican family who ‘adopted’ him refuse to join the fight. Hawkeye and the Mohicans head out on a trapping expedition but stumble upon a Huron war party. The Hurons ambush a British escort, killing most of the soldiers. Huron warrior Magua is purposeful in trying to kill two British women in the escort, Cora and Alice Munro, the daughters of a Colonel fighting on the continent. Hawkeye and the Mohicans stop the murders from happening and agree to take the survivors to Colonel Munro at Fort William Henry, in the Adirondack Mountains. In their time together, Hawkeye and Cora begin to fall in love. Once at the Fort, Colonel Munro is happy to see his daughters but is conflicted, aware the British face a losing battle. The Colonel eventually gives in to the French commander’s generous terms of surrender and the British, Americans, and ally natives abandon the Fort. With Hawkeye in chains, the Mohicans unwilling to leave him, Cora in love with him, and another Huron ambush waiting in the wings, the film crescendos in a finale with chases, hand-to-hand combat, and the oft-quoted promise that “I will find you.”
I feel like if this movie was a novella in the ‘80s, Fabio would have been depicted as Hawkeye on the cover. You can tell this film is cut from the same cloth as Titanic for the way romance is handled. Not necessarily a bad thing, I just found it a bit all too easy in an era where social and economic customs would have governed the process. Still, this was a great story and it unfolded in an entertaining way. The French and Indian war is a fascinating time to set a film, and one that hardly gets enough attention. Both in context of early discontent among Colonial Americans and of how colonial powers interacted with Native Americans. Native Americans were central to this story, driving both the protagonist and antagonist stories. In fact, our “white people story” sort of resolves right before the climax and the true finale is an epic battle between warriors. One final thing to call out is how absolutely stunning this film is. It truly gives you respect for nature and a sense of scale for the frontier of colonial America. For as meme-able as this film is, I definitely enjoyed it.