James Fenimore Cooper's frontier Western, unfilmed for many years, gets a modern re-telling, red in tooth and claw. Stirring action scenes are the heart of the film's appeal, but director Michael Mann holds some of his carefully-composed shots far too long, trying to infuse the tale with a resonance and importance it doesn't really have. Daniel Day-Lewis is a sort of Irish-American Hawkeye, but all virility; and the fights are splendidly paced and edited, even if Day-Lewis and his Indian pals' idea of combat seems to be to run at their opponents from a distance; like the negotiations with the Indians towards the end, this remains somewhat puzzling. There doesn't seem to be much of a game plan going on at the climax, for example, to rescue Jodhi May from the bad guys. Whatever happened to good old Indian stealth in ambush? In the supporting cast, Steven Waddington is well on target as the unpleasant English officer who becomes Hawkeye's rival for the love of Madeleine Stowe.