Grey Owl

Set in the 1930s, this dramatic misfire purports to tell the true-story of trapper and wildlife guide Archie Grey Owl (Pierce Brosnan), an Amerindian half-breed (part Apache, part Scotsman) who spearheads an international campaign to protect Canada's great northern wilderness. Grey Owl has a terrible secret, however; a secret that forces him to retire from public life, and eventually compromises his efforts on behalf of the environment; a secret that most can guess within the first 10 minutes. The seriously miscast Brosnan does his best with the unremarkable story and maudlin screenplay, but for his efforts the filmmakers reward him with chest-length Pippi Longstocking-esqe pigtails, a major costuming gaffe that makes it impossible for the viewer to take anything his character says seriously. But the even bigger casting mistake was putting Quebec-born Annie Galipeau in the role of Brosnan's romantic interest. While the doe-eyed, Jagger-lipped Galipeau is a beauty, she's also one of the worst actresses I've seen in recent memory, delivering her lines as if she were reading them (badly) straight off cue cards. It's possible that the worthy subject matter blinded Brosnan and the venerable English helmer Richard Attenborough to the artistic worth of this material, but we needn't make the same mistake. Avoid at all costs. (S. C. Sickles)