AaronCapenBanner Charles Bronson plays Canadian trapper Albert Johnson, who lives alone in his mountain cabin. One day while in town he breaks up a dogfight, then forcibly buys the beaten dog from his loathsome guardian, only to later have to shoot and kill someone in self defense at his home, forcing seasoned lawman Sgt. Edgar Millen to form a posse to arrest Johnson for murder, leading to an extended chase of the resourceful and elusive Albert in the frozen mountains of the Yukon.Good to see Bronson and Marvin reunited(after they worked together in "The Dirty Dozen") and nicely filmed on location, with good action scenes, but unfortunately film is cluttered with two many characters(like the ones played by Andrew Stevens and Carl Weathers) with some poor writing of them, and extraneous scenes, when it is the dynamic of Bronson & Marvin that should be the focus. Story is also quite similar to Bronson's earlier film "Chato's Land", though that was set in the desert, and was a better film too.

sol1218 **SPOILERS** Having saved a sled dog from being torn apart in a savage dog fight trapper Albert Johnson, Charles Bonson, get's involved in a shooting, in self-defense, that has the Royal Mounted Canadian Police sent to arrest him. The head of the Mounties in the district, the northern Yukon, Sgt.Edger Millen, Lee Marvin,is anything but interested in capturing Johnson feeling that he killed one of those trappers who were out to kill him. The group lead by Hazel, Ed Lauther, who's dog Johnson saved now were determined to track down and kill Johnson feeling that he's the notorious "Mad Trapper" that everyone in law enforcement north of the Mason Dixon line are looking for.Johnson a loner who wants nothing to do with the outside world ends up being chased up the Yukon wilderness as he tries to make it to safety in the inaccessible wilds of Alaska. It' during the chase that were introduced to the real "Mad Trapper" who Johnson is mistaken for. This lowlife, the "Mad Trapper", has a habit of murdering his unsuspecting victims and then pulling their gold teeth or fillings out of their mouths.Together on the hunt, for Johnson, with the no so interested Sgt. Millen is his new deputy the Dudley Do-Right-like Constable Alvin Adams, Andrew Stevens, and Millen's sidekick the former Negro League star pitcher Sundog or George Washington Lincoln Brown Played by Carl Weathers. Millen who's been cooped up in the Youkon for years has finally gotten romantically involved with an attractive American woman Vanessa McBride, Angie Dickerson, compared to the Eskimo hookers, that he calls buffalo women, that he's used to partying around with. Venessa who had come up north to pick up her dead husbands things, his watch and trapping license, fell heads over heels for the weather beaten and dog-faced Sgt. Millen who, with the exception of Constable Adams, was about the only normal and sane man in the area. That despite his constantly guzzling down bottle after bottle or rat gut moonshine and smoking notoriously smelly home made cigars. It also turned out that the frustrated Hazel, who had everything going wrong for him in the movie, looking to get some hot action for himself, in the freezing and unfriendly Yukon winter, took an enormous liking to the very cute and boyish Constable Adams. As expected Hazel ended up, after Adams cold cocked him, almost six feet under when he got a wee bit touchy feely with the young Mountie.****SPOILERS**** With all the efforts to catch him that included a WWI vintage airplane, Johnson did make it to the safety of the Alasken border but only after knocking off almost all those in Sgt. Millen's posse who were trying to both kill and capture him for a reward of $1,000. As we soon learned Johnson wasn't the ghoulish "Mad Trapper" that almost everyone accused him of being. It was both Sgt. Millen and Constable Adams who, with the help of Johnson, unwittingly tracked the "Mad Trapper" down and finally ended his reign of terror in the northern territories.

vostf The production team had a very powerful true story to build upon, but they just tacked Bronson and Marvin in a loose adaptation and felt content with it. In the end, the biggest flaw of all is there's hardly a Death Hunt taking place. The whole picture fumbles with geographical continuity so much that suspense is never gaining momentum. Aerial shots of abrupt snowy slopes contrast with the ground shots where actors happen to run on a mostly flat soil, with little snow most of the time.Thus the chase looks more like a veteran's trekking in the mountains. Peter Hunt was supposed to be an innovative editor, but he constantly failed to prove he could edit pictures in his head to achieve remarkable results as a director. All the chase sequences feel disjointed, shot at various locations. Bronson is in sight, then he escapes, and then again he seems cornered by the Mountie posse soon joined by the improvised bounty hunters coming out of the wild, simply catching up with the unrelenting chase (ok Bronson is supposed to zigzag and the plane helps to locate him very closely, but little is done to make this a consistent narrative feature).Eventually it's a poor rendition of a fantastic true story only because the guys involved took the pedestrian path to a Death Hunt in the Arctic wilderness. The R-rated bullet impacts or the wasteful Angie Dickinson cameo are further evidence of a cheap-shots-oriented production.

fedor8 This was one of the last movies that featured real men playing men. From the late 80s onwards, it was the likes of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt who took over. And now they're even trying to establish wimps like Leo Di Crapio and Matt Damon as tough action heroes. Laughable. Still, sheep all over the world have accepted them, proving that the dumbed-down masses will accept ANYTHING as long as the hype is intense and long enough.Marvin and Bronson were a remnant of the last generation of leading male actors who actually look like alpha males. Just picture Affleck as a tough Mountie, or Ryan Philippe as the tough trapper. However, the good casting isn't the only plus in DH. The scenery is rather nice, the action is okay. It's a straight-forward but pleasant enough movie.One weird thing, though: what the hell was that gay scene all about? The one in which the gang leader force-kisses Marvin's young apprentice. This isn't exactly a prison movie.