Product Description

An epic adventure and passionate romance unfold against the panorama of a frontier wilderness ravaged by war. Academy Award® winner Daniel Day-Lewis (Best Actor in 1989 for My Left Foot) stars as Hawkeye, rugged frontiersman and adopted son of the Mohicans, and Madeleine Stowe is Cora Munro, aristocratic daughter of a proud British Colonel. Their love, tested by fate, blazes amidst a brutal conflict between the British, the French and Native American allies that engulfs the majestic mountains and cathedral-like forests of Colonial America.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #685 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-01-23
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 112 minutes

Amazon.com
Wildly romantic, daringly exciting, Michael Mann's film of James Fenimore Cooper's novel created a new babe magnet out of Daniel Day-Lewis, he of the heaving pecs and flowing mane. As Hawkeye, he plays an American settler raised by the Mohicans who is forced to serve as a guide for British adventurism in upstate New York. But the British have been outflanked by the French (and their Indian allies); then British honor is betrayed when a band of renegades assaults them during their retreat. Mann captures the viciousness of this era's hand-to-hand combat in startling battle scenes. But he also invests the film with heartfelt romance, as the feelings swell between Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe. The ending is a stunner, a long, nearly wordless sequence of battle and loss. Strong performances all around, particularly by Russell Means as Chingachgook and Wes Studi as the evil Magua. --Marshall Fine

From The New Yorker
In Michael Mann's version of James Fenimore Cooper's improbably durable tall tale, everybody looks great: the movie seduces us with haircuts and landscape. The hero of this melodramatic story of pre-Revolutionary America is Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis), a rugged-but sensitive-individualist who roams the forest of the Hudson Valley in the company of two Indians, Chingachgook (Russell Means) and Uncas (Eric Schweig). The three men serve as guides and bodyguards for Cora and Alice Munro (Madeleine Stowe and Jodhi May), the maidenly daughters of a British officer. The Brits are at war with the French, but the greatest danger to Anglo-Saxon life and limb is posed by a band of bloodthirsty Indian guerrillas, led by a wily Huron named Magua (Wes Studi). The setup pretty much guarantees thrills, and Mann delivers the action-movie goods, but with a sort of abstract, lyrical pictorialism. Day-Lewis's Hawkeye-a cultured white man's dream of virile primitivism-is almost entirely a visual phenomenon, and it works. (He runs well, and sports a terrific mane of straight, stringy alternative-rocker hair.) The picture is awfully, solemnly silly, but it's enjoyable and even rather stirring. Mann has polished up a not very profound myth with skill and conviction, and given it a fetching new look; that's what pop filmmakers do. Also with Maurice Roëves and Steven Waddington. The lush cinematography is by Dante Spinotti. -Terrence Rafferty
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Theatrical version available on DVD overseas
Like many people here, I detest the recut DVD version of this film. Seeing the original theatrical version in 1992 was one of the key moviegoing experiences of my life. I don't buy DVDs to see a new spin on a movie I liked, I buy them to be able to rewatch that same movie. Alternate cuts are fine as a bonus feature, but once I saw how Michael Mann had butchered his mainstream masterpiece, giving no option of seeing how it was originally, I sold the DVD and bought a copy of the mercifully untouched widescreen VHS.

Recently, however, I discovered that while this American director's cut DVD is from Fox, Warner Bros holds the rights to Mohicans outside the USA, and they have released the original theatrical version on DVD around the globe. I have a regionless DVD player, which is easy to get in many stores for under fifty dollars, so I bought a copy of the British DVD at amazon.co.uk

Wow. It's as I remembered it, with the Clannad song, without the extra monologue over the closing scene, and with my favorite line back in -- "My father warned me about people like you. He said do not try to understand them, and do not try to make them understand you."

If you love this movie like I do, get a regionless DVD player, they're worth it for so many reasons, and then get a copy of the British DVD. You'll be glad you did.

Great Original Movie (and VHS); POOR DVD
Re-release of a previous review so those who read nearby reviews NOTE the difference between VHS (excellent) and DVD (POOR): Waited in great anticipation for the DVD release of this one. The Last of the Mohicans is a great movie enhanced with terrific music. The VHS widescreen version in THX is a wonderful piece of entertainment. Unfortunately, this Director's Expanded Edition has destroyed the flow and continuity of the original. In Director Michael Mann's attempt to supply us with his "definitive vision of the film" via his own editing, he has ignored the professional editors and provided us with a substandard version of what was a fine film. Several of the added clips have no musical sound track at all and come across as painfully awkward - making the viewer fully aware he/she is watching actors in front of a camera rather than immersing us in the action. There is even a series of scenes in the original (and VHS) that has a vocal music piece overlaid that has been completely omitted from the DVD. All in all, I was very disappointed in the DVD after having distinctive and memorable images etched in my mind from the original theater and VHS releases.

Romance and Adventue
Set in 1757 during the French and Indian War, "The Last of the Mohicans" is based (but does not strictly adhere to) the novel by James Fenimore Cooper. It is a lavish, exquisite production, with Daniel Day-Lewis fantastic as Hawkeye, showing a screen magnetism that is more intense than in any other part he has played. His chemistry with beautiful Cora, wonderfully portrayed by Madeleine Stowe is palpable, and they manage to have one of the most erotic love scenes ever filmed, without shedding a single garment. The film has many battles scenes, and could be categorized as "action/adventure," but I always think of it as being primarily a romance, and it is also an excellent depiction of the early days of the settlers, and their many struggles.

The setting is western New York, with much of the action taking place at Fort William Henry, but it was actually filmed in the lush and scenic wilderness of North Carolina, with superb cinematography by Dante Spinotti, and a lovely score by Trevor Jones and Randy Edelman. Michael Mann's direction keeps a terrific pace, and the cast is wonderful, and includes Russell Means, marvelous in his film debut as Chingachgook, Eric Schweig as Uncas, Wes Studi as the revengeful Magua, Johdi May as Cora's sister Alice, and Steven Waddington impressive as Major Duncan Heyward.

VHS vs. DVD: The Director's Expanded Edition, though still a brilliant film, is a disappointment, and I will be keeping my old letterbox VHS, which though worn, actually has a brighter picture than the DVD. The "expanded" portions add little to the enjoyment of the film, and the deletions hurt it. The incomplete conversation between Hawkeye and Cora in the burial ground is left hanging in the air, and the absence of Clannad's song, "I Will Find You", takes much of the magic from the scene where Hawkeye follows the captured Cora.
Total running time for the VHS, 114 minutes, DVD 117 minutes.