Dan Candy's Law (1974)

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The following review contains spoilers. This 1974 north Western stars Donald Sutherland in the title role as Dan Candy, a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman on duty in the plains of Saskatchewan. Candy is a little immature, a little annoying, and perfectly balanced by his family man partner Grant (Kevin McCarthy). The duo arrests Almighty Voice (Gordon Tootoosis) for stealing one of the government's cows out of desperate hunger. Sounding Sky (Chief Dan George) is Almighty Voice's father. Candy takes the whole thing as a big joke, until Almighty Voice escapes from jail and kills Grant. Candy spends the rest of the film tracking down the now dangerous criminal, with little to no help from his fellow constables or the Native people.

At ninety minutes, the film is way too brief, and takes short cuts in its story to get to the action scenes. This means that Sutherland goes from party doofus to vengeful rogue cop in about twenty seconds, Tootoosis goes from hungry martyr-like Indigenous to cold blooded killer also in record time, and McCarthy is in just three scenes. When the film tries to be an action film, it fails as well. Sutherland is usually screaming as his superior for the umpteenth time, then rides out into the woods and is shot at- again and again. The finale, when the criminal and friends are trapped in the woods, is equally puzzling. The RCMP higher-ups do not seem to care about catching the killer of one of their own, but suddenly arrive with cannon to root out the villains. Even Grant's funeral scene is messed up, as Candy thinks about Grant's murder, even though he was not there. Sutherland, for being given such an impossible part to play, does a good job. One amazing scene has him trying to tell Grant's orphaned son a funny story about crows and an outhouse while he slowly breaks down in grief. Fournier catches some of the amazing vistas of the Great Plains, and his fog enshrouded opening credits are dazzling, but with the lousy editing and dull script, he is as creatively bound as Sutherland.

"Dan Candy's Law," better known as "Alien Thunder," should have been a rumination on revenge, and a comment about how the U.S. government does not have a monopoly on mistreating Native people, but instead this film went for the cheap action thrill without an action thrill to highlight. Lousy copies and various running times exist out there, this would be a fine candidate for a good clean-up and physical media release, so be mindful of the source copy before you watch this.

Stats:
(1974) 93 min. (* *) out of five stars
-Directed by Claude Fournier
-Screenplay by George Malko, Story by Claude Fournier & Marie-Jose Raymond
-Cast: Donald Sutherland, Gordon Tootoois, Chief Dan George, Kevin McCarthy, Jean Duceppe, Francine Racette, James O'Shea, Sarain Stump, Antony Parr, John Boylan, Ernestine Gamble, Vincent Daniels, Jack Creley
(PG)