A Breed Apart

I was expecting much more than this movie delivered, the actors involved have all given some great performances, but none of them seemed remotely connected to this story line. Hauer, who'd just made the classic 'Osterman Weekend' plays a former soldier, dedicated to looking after his own private island, and its bird population. Donald Pleasence is an avid collector of rare birds eggs and hires Powers Boothe to recover some extremely rare eggs from Hauers island.

Hauer gets himself in a local dispute with some hunters killing birds on his land, and so ensues a messy, clumsy war between him and the hunters. Add to this Powers Boothe arrival and the film starts to fall flat on its face. The acting is very average, and the films ultimate aim at pointing out the importance of nature is lost amongst the movies detracting subplots.

The direction and production isn't up to scratch, only adding the the films failure. Although an avid fan of hauers work, id recommend you don't waste your time on 'A Breed Apart'.

In my opinion, this movie is much better than you'd expect for the low ratings it has received. All the starring actors do a great job here and the casting fits the characters easily.

This is a tale of a of vietnam veteran living as a hermit (Rutger Hauer) in his own private island, taking care of the wildlife and protecting the animals. He confronts some nasty scoundrels (Brion James acting one of them, good old Gaff from Blade Runner!), shooting birds just for the fun of it, scares them away, though they keep coming back for more. There's a rich old bird-egg collector (Donald Pleasance) who hires for a grand price a slick mountaineer (Powers Boothe) to collect eggs for a from an endangered eagle species living on the island. A single mother, working as a shopkeeper in nearby village (Kathleen Turner) feels strongly for the hermit veteran and is always turned down by him, though he cares for her boy and spends time with him in the woods, saving some animals etc.. There are some quite strong emotional scenes for Hauer and Turner and I think it's exactly the unrequited love between their characters that's one major motor here keeping the film interesting.

The pace of this is film probably rather slow for younger audience, but there are plenty of good elements to make this movie worth watching. For instance, the cinematography: it's shot mostly in open air enviroments, and it's also a very bright movie, as it is filmed mostly in sunny daylight. Good character evolution: the characters really contemplate on their actions and their consequences. The plot is simple, quite naive actually, but works fairly good in a certain, innocent mood. There's some mild violence to give a bit of tension and mild nudity for the erotica but nothing too nasty to kill the overall positive vibe of the film.

After declaring myself not a Philippe Mora fan, mostly based on "According to Occams Razor", which is a mockery of a movie, and 'Pterodactyl Woman From Beverly Hills", which is just pathetic, I was totally surprised as to how much I enjoyed "A Breed Apart" . The North Carolina location photography is very good, and the acting by Rutger Hauer is especially intriguing. He is a mystery man, protecting the animals on his Blue Ridge Mountain island. His hermit like tranquility is threatened by poacher Brion James, and another intruder, Powers Boothe, helps Hauer run off Brion and his gang. Kathleen Turner being romantically rejected by Hauer, decides to play the jealousy card, with decidedly mixed results. Meanwhile Boothe is using both Turner and Hauer to try and complete his mission of stealing two Bald Eagle eggs for $250,000 promised by egg collector, Donald Pleasance. Well worth a look. - MERK

Jim Malden (Rutger Hauer) is a reclusive woodsman who obsessively protects the animals on his land. Single mom Stella Clayton (Kathleen Turner) owns the local store and has a crush on him. Mike Walker (Powers Boothe) needs $150k to fund a mountain climb in China. Rich egg collector J. P. Whittier (Donald Pleasence) is willing to pay, but needs Mike to steal the eggs of a new breed of bald eagle. In fact, he wants all the eggs to drive the new species into extinction.

These are big time actors from this era and I am surprised to have never heard of this movie. After doing some reading, I can see why. Aside from any difficulties, the story is rather wonky. The premise of the new eagle species is also a bit wonky. On top of that, it's hard to outright root for any of the characters. In the end, I love these actors and that helps a lot.

Although the film lacks a strong story line, the actors do well in their roles. Most of the reading of the story comes from "between the lines" and the actors abilities to present the story to us. I think the editor did a good job of putting together a reasonable film even though he was missing a reel that got lost in transit. Admittedly if he had had all four reels, the final cut would have been improved. Still I enjoyed watching this film even though I had to fill in some blank spots with my own thoughts as to how some things tied together. A little popcorn, some spare time, and lets watch 'A Breed Apart'. The scenery is fine.