Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe, Wes Studi, Russell Means, Jodhi May, Pete Postlethwaite, Colm Meaney
Director: Michael Mann
Producers: Michael Mann and Hunt Lowry
Screenplay: Christopher Crowe, Michael Mann based on the novel by James Fenimore Cooper
Cinematographer: Dante Spinotti
Music: Trevor Jones and Randy Edelman
UK Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox

The Last of the Mohicans is by no means your mainstream box office smash. But released in a year of disappointing films, Alien 3, Far and Away, Patriot Games and Lethal Weapon 3 to name but four, it remains one of the most intellectually stimulating flicks of the early nineties.

And if that sounds a little highbrow for you, then there is the added bonus that Daniel Day Lewis and Madeleine Stowe are bursting with more sexual chemistry than a Viagra factory.

James Fenimore Cooper's most famous novel has received at least 10 film and TV interpretations over the years but none have been as brutal and unforgettable as Michael Mann's blockbuster.

Day-Lewis stars as the legendary frontiersman Hawkeye who rescues, and falls in love with a British officer's daughter during the Anglo-French war.

With some beautiful landscapes, meticulous period detail and a breathtaking score by Trevor Jones and Randy Edelman, this is one of the most watchable adventures of the Nineties.

Stowe co-stars as Hawkeye's love interest, Cora Munro, and delivers a near-perfect English accent amid the exploding cannons and gunfire.

If you only catch a minute, make sure it's the scene where DDL assures his love interest that surrendering to the enemy may be the best chance of them being reunited in the long run.

"No, you submit, do you hear? You be strong, you survive... You stay alive, no matter what occurs! I will find you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far, I will find you."

If the hairs don't rise on the back of your neck, somebody check your pulse as you may be dead.
In case you didn't know it, Mann is one of America's most acclaimed directors with movies such as Heat, The Insider and Manhunter doing little to dent his reputation. It took quite a while to secure the talents of his leading man for this movie but the determination paid off dividends.

Day-Lewis, as with all of his movie roles, went to extraordinary lengths to achieve a degree of credibility. He spends much of the film running around so had to be in tip top condition for the arduous shoot. He also became adept with knives and guns to give the illusion of a trapper who can more than take care of himself in the wild.

So, a cracking tale well told then.

However, as with The Fugitive a year later, there is the annoying cliche of our hero jumping into waterfall hundreds of feet from the plunge pool „ and surviving.

Divers in Acapulco may manage such a stunt but both Day Lewis and Harrison Ford stretch credibility to breaking point when they try it.

The movie was released with a modest certificate, yet contains such gut-wrenching scenes of brutality that it's a wonder it didn't buck an 18 rating. But this being violence of the more literate kind, it was little wonder the British Board of Film Censors let much of the bloodshed go through untouched by the editor's scissors.

If it does prove too graphic for you then feel free to turn the brightness down but leave the glorious soundtrack on.
It remains a treat for the ears; rousing, lyrical and beats the Titanic score into a cocked hat: Little wonder TV companies have been using it for the last nine years while plugging historic dramas.

Aside from the leads, Russell Means, Wes Studi, Maurice Roeves and Eric Schweig also give fine performances while Jodhi May is unforgettably haunting as Alice, the screen sister of Stowe.

A drop-dead gorgeous film which is not for the squeamish but just oozes the sort of class most film-makers would die to recreate.

Trivia: Nicholas Dudman, make-up artist on Batman (1989) and The Phantom Menace provided some of the prosthetic effects.

Michael Mann's obsession with the project led to the early departure of three of his department heads.

James Acheson (costume designer on The Last Emperor and Dangerous Liaisons) left first, exhausted. Veteran hair stylist Vera Mitchell (Gandhi, Out Of Africa, A Passage To India) left for similar reasons. Cinematographer Doug Milsome (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) was pushed out, making way for Mann's original choice, Dante Spinotti (Manhunter).

Mann needed an authentic replica of Fort William Henry so he had hills levelled, acres of forest cleared and hired 130 carpenters to fashion the 400 foot by 300 foot British bastion.

Twenty five acres of forest in North Carolina were levelled for the fort alone with 13 acres cleared for the Huron village and frontier homestead.

Day-Lewis spent a month in Alabama's Special Operations Centre, a private anti terrorist training camp. He and Mann tested their survival skills through trips into the Alabama forest, living like 18th century woodsmen.