Pierce Brosnan as a native fur trapper in the wilds of 1930s Canada may take some believing, but Brosnan handles the role pretty well. And the casting's not so unusual, since we learn early in the story that Archie Grey Owl is a fake - an Englishman who became obsessed with the lives of Canadian Indians and set out at 17 to live among them. But after a half-Mohawk girl (the lovely Annie Galipeau) sets her cap at him and follows him into the wilderness, she not only converts him to the cause of conservationism - scenes where they bring up two orphaned beaver kits are the most charming in the film - but also reveals inconsistencies in his stories about his past. It's a dignified, slightly slow and occasionally exciting tale given vast scope by director Richard Attenborough, whose observation of time and place is as painstaking and immaculate as ever.