Bullet Points: North Star
North Star was a movie that got me very excited when I saw it on the shelf. First of all, it was only $3. Secondly, it starred one of my all-time favorite guys in Christopher Lambert. Even the tagline to the movie had a good ring to it: “Where land is power and revenge is obsession”. It certainly had plenty of things going for it on the surface.
Synopsis: Set during the Alaskan gold rush of the late 1800s. In his efforts to gain control of a small mining town, Sean McLennon (James Caan) is buying up every mining claim that becomes available, usually after the deaths of the previous owners at the hands of McLennon’s “assistants”. One of the miners targeted by McLennon, a half-Indian hunter named Hudson Saanteek (Christopher Lambert), manages to escape his hired thugs, and comes back into town looking to re-establish his claim and get revenge. McLennon and his men have the advantage of numbers and weapons, but Saanteek has his survival skills, and knowledge of the Alaskan wilderness. via IMDB
- Alaskan frontier: The film takes place in the year 1899. The small town in Alaska is seeing signs of the same type of “gold rush” that California had experienced half a century earlier. The movie picks up as foreign families stake claims to land all along the wilderness, searching for gold, freezing to death, and generally just stealing land from the native tribes living in the area.
- Action Chaplin: No matter what you might think of Christopher Lambert, he is nearly the equivalent of an ass-kicking Charlie Chaplin. He goes about 22 minutes into this movie without saying a word and I an think back to other movies in his filmography where he doesn’t say a single thing. Is he really a silent movie juggernaut like Charlie Chaplin was? No. But I would totally watch a movie about Charlie Chaplin in a Die Hard situation and I’ll never stop dreaming.
- Buff Burt Young: I never expected Paulie from the Rocky franchise to be the tough guy gunslinger type in a Western. Maybe he’s played this role a dozen times in movies that I’ve never seen but I can definitely not remember him ever looking like he was in good shape. Could we have missed our chance to see Paulie and Rocky go toe to toe in the ring? From the looks of Burt Young in this 1996 film, I think it could have been better than Rocky V.
- One tough Caan: James Caan plays the wealthy McLennon. He owns the entire town and he’s not making any friends among the foreigners by essentially stealing all their claims to the land. He starts to run into trouble when a claim on North Star, owned by Lambert’s Hudson, forces McLennon into a predicament that includes murdering several people. I hate when that happens.
- The amazing Multi-ethnic Lambert: Christopher Lambert can apparently play any and all characters. Tarzan of the Jungle, a Scottish dude from Medieval times, a half-Indian hunter, Raiden from Mortal Kombat; no matter who or what your character is, send Chris your script and he will easily adapt and evolve into your character.
- Catherine the motivator: You might remember Catherine McCormack best as William Wallace’s deceased love in Braveheart. Her role in North Star was her follow up to the one in Braveheart but I’m afraid she has far less to do in the time she’s given. She might be the motivating factor in both movies, but her usefulness in North Star diminishes when James Caan turns full on bad guy and just tries to be the Lex Luthor of the Alaskan wilderness.
- Needs more First Blood: The doesn’t really pick up till at least halfway through it when Caan and his posse chase down the fleeing Lambert. I was hoping for some sort of high speed dog sled chase but instead it became a “we’re in a blizzard and we’re trying to track the via sled tracks”. It’s less exciting and the whiteout conditions of the blizzard make it even worse. I wanted to see some John Rambo boobytraps set for the bad guys or at least some Cliffhanger-style mountain battles but I was let down at every turn.
The Verdict: North Star was not the movie I was hoping for. The potential was there with the three of four main stars but I didn’t feel like the execution was good enough to pull the movie out of the gutter. Lambert seems less charismatic than I’ve ever seen him and James Caan felt like he was working with next to nothing in terms of script. Most of his lines feel so forced and his actions as the one rich and powerful guy in town don’t feel realistic at all. Catherine McCormack was wasted by the middle part of the movie. She almost dies and gets nursed back to health at least twice during the movie and I just stopped caring about her at some point. If you’re a massive fan of Lambert (like me) and you find it for $3 then it might be worth it. Just don’t expect it to be as good as it could and should have been.
