Mann and coscreenwriter Christopher Crowe stray far from Cooper (they base their script just as much on the 1936 movie with Randolph Scott). This first act sets up Mann's themes: the divided politics of the Colonies the treachery of the Indian Magua (Wes Studi), who scouts for the English but spies for the French and vows to kill Munro and his daughters to avenge the death of his family, and the dawning love between Hawkeye and Cora, who finds all this open-air adventure "deeply stirring to my blood." He agrees to guide them-and Cora's arrogant suitor, Major Heyward (Steven Waddington)-to the fort where Colonel Munro, the girls' father, is fighting off a French attack.
Raised by Mohicans after the death of his English parents, and more at home in the backwoods than in a Colonial settlement, he's traveling with his adoptive father, Chingachgook (Russell Means), and brother, Uncas (Eric Schweig), when he rescues two English sisters, Cora (Madeleine Stowe) and Alice (Jodhi May), from an ambush by tomahawk-wielding Hurons. Mann's hero, Hawkeye, played by Daniel Day-Lewis, stands outside the fray, committed to neither side. The French and English, each allied with Native American tribes, are fighting over the new continent. When this historical adventure kicks in, it's thrilling in the way old-fashioned epics used to be, but its romanticism has a fierce, violent physicality that gives it a distinctively modern stamp.
It's certainly not what you'd expect from macho stylist Michael Mann, the master of Armani-meets-Sartre urban fatalism, who brought us "Miami Vice" and the movies "Thief " and " Manhunter." Then again, if Susan Sontag can try her hand at a romance, why shouldn't the hard-boiled Mann translate James Fenimore Cooper for a late-20th-century audience? His gorgeous The Last of the Mohicans gets off to a bumpy start, gathers feeling and momentum and comes roaring into the homestretch at full gallop. I am all alone, this is no joke.Not many filmmakers today are attempting grand passions, bold romantic gestures, love stories unfolding against breathtaking period landscapes. I am injured, near death, and too weak to hike out of here. On a page torn from Taras Bulba, Chris wrote an SOS: “I need your help. And Penn makes the lack of that connection palpable when Chris heads to Alaska, enduring four months of isolation until his starved body (Hirsch lost forty pounds for the role) is found in an abandoned bus. Chris’ ache for connection is movingly portrayed in his relationship with widower Ron Franz (Hal Holbrook in his shining hour onscreen). An unconsummated romance with underage Tracy (Kristen Stewart) in Slab City, an RV camp in the California desert, also speaks to his character. Dubbing himself Alexander Supertramp, Chris lets his wanderlust take him to a South Dakota farm run by Wayne Westerberg (Vince Vaughn), on a scary kayak trip down to Mexico, and to a trailer shared by “rubbertramps” Jan (Catherine Keener) and Rainey (Brian Dierker). Penn uses narration from Chris’ beloved sister Carine (Jena Malone) to reveal why he cut himself off from his affluent Virginia parents, Walt (William Hurt) and Billie (Marcia Gay Harden).
Penn was insistent about shooting the film on the same locations that Chris traveled over two years, after he burned his driver’s license and credit cards, gave away $24,000 in savings and set out to find his place in the world without a map. Over the film’s enveloping two hours and twenty-five minutes, Hirsch gives an award-caliber performance of astonishing depth and humanity.
Following Penn’s lead, Emile Hirsch ( Lords of Dogtown) gets so far into Chris’ skin that they seem to share the same nerve endings. Into the Wild represents Penn’s most assured and affecting work yet as director and screenwriter, in the wake of The Indian Runner, The Crossing Guard and The Pledge. If, like Penn, you mourn Chris’ tragedy and his judgment errors but also exult in his journey and its spirit of moral inquiry, then this beautiful, wrenching film will take a piece out of you. If you read the book and pegged Chris as a wacko narcissist who died out of arrogance and stupidity, then Penn’s film version is not for you. Krakauer told the true story of Chris McCandless, an honors grad from Emory University who walked into the Alaskan wilderness in 1992 to find himself outside the confines of estranged family, well-meaning friends and any governing impulse besides his own questing heart. Sean Penn has molded one of the best movies of a bustling fall out of Jon Krakauer’s best-selling Into the Wild.