The Young Cub
Sitting around the campfire Old Harry (Richard Harris, Daniel Clark) tells his grandchildren about when he was a child. It was following the death of his mother that his adventure loving father, Tyrone Bankston (Bryan Brown - FX2 - The Deadly Art Of Illusion), returned home briefly to pick him up and take him on one of his hunts. This hunt involved the planned capture of a grizzly bear for it to be shipped back to the experts to be studied. But when they come across a mother bear and two cubs young Harry finds himself captured by the grizzly when the cubs are taken by the hunters. But rather than kill Harry the bear bonds with him, treating him like a cub and together find themselves on the trail of the cubs whilst his father and a close friend end up on their trail.
On paper "Grizzly Falls" sounds like another one of those powerful adventure movies where someone lost in the wilderness encounters the excitement of nature on their incident filled journey home. Heck a child walking with a grizzly bear in the woods certainly sounds like it should have its fair share of wild rides and beautiful scenes of nature at its best. But to be frank, some thing went wrong as whilst "Grizzly Falls" isn't a bad movie it strangely struggles to truly capture your attention.
The thing is that "Grizzly Falls" ticks a lot of boxes from the opening which sees an old man telling his grandchildren about his childhood adventure with a bear to scenes of the child with the bear who treats him like a cub. You also get some beautiful scenic shots whilst on top of that the drama of young Harry's father trying to find him and the bear. Of course we get some boy bear bonding and a deeper understanding but some thing is missing. Maybe it is a sense of awe or maybe cuteness but that feeling I use to get from other similar movies doesn't manifest itself in this movie.
What this all boils down to is that maybe for those who were young teens in 1999 "Grizzly Falls" holds some sort of nostalgic memory. But watched now this just doesn't quite click, it doesn't quite capture your attention with the adventure or the awe inspiring beauty of the wilderness.
