It must be a strange place - the frozen wastes of northern Alaska. This is a land where the ethereal quality of the Northern Lights can hypnotise and the piercing cold can make grown men do strange things - like sled dog racing.

It's also the sort of world where James Coburn can be revealed as Cuba Gooding Jr's long-lost father.

Gooding Jr plays Miami dentist Ted Brooks, an orthodontist so successful the registration plate on his Porsche Boxster reads Open Wyd. Apart from a Michael Bolton fixation, there's nothing to distinguish Ted from any other high-flying American professional (or perhaps they all like Michael).

That's until he gets a summons to attend the distribution of a will... a few thousand miles north in the freezing outpost of Tolketna, Alaska. It's now that Ted learns he was adopted and his real mother has died, leaving him all her worldly goods. All he has to do is sort them out.

Of course, it's not that simple. Ted heads north, catches the eye of sultry bar owner Barb (Bacalso) and finds he's inherited a dog team. He also finds he's inherited the enmity (and the genes) of crusty mountain man Thunder Jack (Coburn).

However, Jack - rejecting his paternal role - urges him to hotfoot it down south while he gets his hands on the dogs. hilst ambling along cheerfully enough, this plays as a TV movie with ideas above its station.

Cuba Gooding Jr does the "fish out of water" turn neatly enough, but there's not enough here for children or adults to really bite on. Unless you like dogs.

Tim Evans