best movie i've ever seen.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This great movie which I first saw in the early 90's was recorded in Red Rock, which is 110 km north-east of Thunder Bay, or 1300 km north- west of Toronto. Red Rock is located at the very northern tip of Lake Superior, in Nipigon Bay in Ontario. I found this movie extremely well made with it's story including sweat-lodges spiritual visions, graphic vengeful violence set far away in a country of forests and lakes, between Lake Superior and Nipigon Lake obviously, in other words far enough for someone to skin somebody alive where nobody will hear him scream... Arthur not only embodies Peter Maguire's anger but the spirit of the natives of that part of the world and their frustration at white people logging enterprises that destroy the forest and encroach on their land. This movie is not for the faint of heart. When Arthur disappears under water at the end of the movie you know he didn't die drowning because you see his medallion at the neck of the cute little Indian girl Paulie afterward... A definite must-see for those who are nature lovers like me.

First of all, I'd like to make a shout out to IMDb: The main characters of this movie are 1.) Graham Greene 2.)Ron Lea 3.) Floyd Red Crow Westerman and bringing up the rear, Michael Hogan. (Please edit the movie's page accordingly). This was an excellent and unforgettable movie, especially to those of us who appreciate and respect the soul of Mother Earth. Graham Greene provides the character of the Earthly guide we would all like to meet.., and then become. The spiritual instruction I got from this movie was great: Find your power. Embrace your earthly existence (including death). Respect life. Two profound moments stick out for me in Clearcut: One is when the three men, Greene, Lea and Hogan, are deep in the northern wilderness, at night, as wolves howl. Greene (Arthur) turns to Hogan (who is playing the part of an abducted, callous, arrogant lumber mill owner) and says, "Those are your trees. They are wailing." Arthur's love for the land is obvious, and has accepted his role as warrior. Something we can all learn from. The other moment that stands out for me is when Arthur is trying to explain "oral tradition" to timid lawyer played by Ron Lea. He takes a small snake out of a bag and assertively bites its head off. "That's oral tradition". he says.The immediacy and vitality of the Native American oral tradition is expressed therein, without words. I could not give this movie a 9 rating because of the receding, reluctant, stubborn and stunted character of Peter Maguire, played by Ron Lea: What could have been a powerful statement for individual bravery, transformation, expansion and catharsis became, instead more of a debate of cultures.The sweat lodge ceremony should have been the awakening of Maguire's personal soul power. Unfortunately, all he got from it were a few unrelated, nebulous images that flashed through his head a couple of times in the movie, usually of some substance (blood?) dripping on a rock.It's pretty obvious that the movie's producer did not want Clearcut to be an unabashed statement for environmental preservation and activism, the way a couple of Steven Segal's films were. Even the title, "Clearcut" says to me that they wanted to frame the movie in non-Native American terms. Honestly, I have not heard so much whining from one character since Lorraine Bracco's character in Medicine Man. If I had been Arthur, I would have killed Maguire first, just to get him to shut up.None of this, not even the brazen, disrespectful lines given to Bud Rickets (the lumber mill owner), or the fact that they wrote him to survive the ordeal, takes anything away from the stunningly-powerful and eminently-valuable performance by Graham Greene, though.If you are somewhat feeling powerless and want to do something different with your life, to break free of how you see and do things, watch this movie. Greene and Red Crow will not disappoint.

Admirers of Graham Greene are in for a real shock with "Clearcut". This is not the lovable Indian character that you are used to seeing Greene playing. When the Native Americans lose in court trying to stop a logging company from cutting trees, Greene resorts to kidnapping and murder. This is an ecological revenge story gone terribly wrong. His method of influencing the owner of the logging company turns proactive, with sadistic torture replacing reason. I'm sure the intent of the writers was to send some sort of sympathetic ecological message, but the screenplay misfires badly if that was what they hoped, and any sympathy clearly lies with the captives. Be prepared for an unrelenting trek through the wilderness, with Greene dishing out liberal doses of sadism. Shockingly entertaining. - MERK

The ten-star folks before me have it right: this is a must-see movie. It goes to the psychological heart of the political paralysis of Western societies today, and to their willingness to pay no attention to whom they screw over, only to wake up surprised that it has all gone wrong. Peter the Toronto cause lawyer is a great image of the white progressive who supports Native causes without actually siding with them, and the film beautifully illustrates what happens when he loses his power to exist in this in-between position. "Deb" is right that the core statement is "you dreamed anger, and your anger is real." If you are angry about how, in Peter's immortal words, "the world has turned to sh-t," will letting your anger emerge then allow you to act, or encourage you to let the usual others act for you? What are you doing, if your anger is real? I will stop before I give anything away, and will end with a plea to the distributor to release this important film in DVD, and drop the VHS price below CA$55.00.