Peter Maguire, a big-city Canadian lawyer (Lea), loses a court appeal to prevent a logging company from clearcutting Native American land. Arthur (Greene), an Ontario Indian militant who might possibly be a spirit-guide Peter conjured up in a sweatlodge ceremony (and thus the embodiment of the lawyer's impotent rage), kidnaps the logging mill manager (Hogan) and drags him and Peter deep into the woods. Arthur puts Peter's big talk to the test by torturing the manager in a manner that mimics what loggers do to trees, and Peter must decide what to do in the face of this vicious, sadistic, magical creation of his deepest wishes. This 1991 Canadian film, shot at Thunder Bay, Ontario and based on the novel _A Dream Like Mine_ by M.T. Kelly, is raw, violent, and blunt. The English-language debut of Polish director Ryszard Bugajski, it's hard to find, and though not too subtle, "Clearcut" offers a reasonably balanced view that is all but overwhelmed by Greene's powerful, sardonic performance.
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The review of this Movie prepared by David Loftus
