Amazon.com
Bruce McDonald's wry adaptation of a
W.P. Kinsella novel is an engaging, touching story about an awkward passage into manhood and love for an 18-year-old Indian metalhead on the Kidabanesee Reserve in Ontario. Silas Crow (Ryan Black) is a drifting young fellow dragging his feet about entering a school for auto mechanics. While loosely entertaining the idea of writing, Silas unprofitably kills all his time with a thickheaded buddy, Frank Fencepost (Adam Beach), and watches his old girlfriend, Sadie Maracle (Jennifer Podemski), grow away from him as she takes up native issues with admirable commitment. A visit by Silas's older sister, Ilianna (Lisa LaCroix) (with her new, white-and-uptight husband reluctantly in tow), plus the simultaneous reappearance of Ilianna's old flame, ex-con Gooch (Michael Greyeyes), and the unpunished murder of a native girl by a white thug set off a series of events culminating in redemptive acts of love and honor. Big themes, yes, but McDonald (
Highway 61) has wisely chosen to emphasize the charm of his characters, make sport of spiritual clichs and Indian chic (there's a funny bit in which Silas gets Ilianna's husband drunk and introduces him to a bogus animal guide), and allow the cruelty of white justice against natives to speak (often comically) for itself.
--Tom Keogh
