The Wild Girl

MOVIE REVIEW

The Wild Girl-

starring Brian Austin Green ("Beverly Hills 90210") and Academy Award nominee Graham Greene ("Dances With Wolves")

This will be a HALLMARK MOVIE CHANNEL HD ORIGINAL film.

Original Air Date: April 24, 2010

Network: Hallmark Movie Channel

CAST-

Brian Austin Green ... Ned Giles

Graham Greene ... Joseph

Mathew Edison ... Tolley Phillips

Gregory Odjig ... Albert

Jorge Molina ... Fernando Huerta

Kathleen Munroe ... Margaret Hawkins

PLOT-

from Hallmark

A Hallmark Movie Channel Original Movie set in the 1930s about a group of Americans who embark on a perilous expedition to exchange a young Apache girl for the son of a wealthy Mexican land owner who has been kidnapped by her tribe.

Ned Giles (Green), an aspiring photographer, is desperate for a job at a local newspaper. When he notices a flyer advertising the chance for privileged men to sign up for an adventure into Old Mexico to save a young boy from the clutches of wild Apache Indians, he convinces Tolley Phillips (Mathew Edison, "House Party"), the troublemaking son of a railroad tycoon, to bring him as his valet so he can photograph the story.

When Ned and Tolley arrive at the expedition's base camp, Ned wanders off alone and discovers a young Apache girl lying in a motionless heap on the ground. He brings her back to the camp where the two local Apache scouts guiding the expedition -- Joseph (Greene) and Albert (Gregory Odjig, "Elijah") -- determine she must be brought back to her people in order to survive. Margaret Hawkins (Kathleen Munroe, "Accidental Friendship"), a graduate student traveling with the expedition as an unofficial anthropologist, negotiates with the expedition authorities to let her, Ned, Tolley, and another valet travel with the guides ahead of the rest of the group and attempt to trade the girl with the Apache Indians for the kidnapped boy.

During the journey, the wild girl unexpectedly befriends the Americans and they form a remarkable relationship that ultimately determines their fate.



Movie Review -

I wasn't expecting such intense Violence from the very start of this movie, but there it was. The opening scene shows a sweet Mexican, Pioneer Looking Family traveling in a wagon... it's a Mother, Father, and Son. Suddenly they are attacked by Apache Indians. The Father is hit and collapses to the ground, the Mother is killed instantly, and the son is kidnapped.

I think this would be absolutely terrifying for most children. It was a very sad scene to open up the movie. From then on, there is a search to find the boy and recapture him from the Indians. As mentioned in the plot above, three ordinary Americans join the military in their search for the boy... Margaret Hawkins (Kathleen Munroe, "Accidental Friendship"), a graduate student and unofficial anthropologist, Ned Giles (Green), an aspiring photographer, who convinces his friend Tolley Phillips (Mathew Edison, "House Party"), to go.

There is a lot more death and violence along the way... and just when you think you know who Margaret Hawkins is in love with, she chooses someone else. It's an interesting story, but it is marked with such great sadness... especially when Tolley Phillips, shows great heroism by rescuing the young boy, and then an instant later, he is killed, by an Indian's bow & arrow - to his back.

All in all, it's a very sad story... even at the end when we see a gallery of the photos that Ned took along the way of his journey. He gives a picture of his friend Tolley, to his father, and then we see other images of the Indians, too... and that is the end.


See or Skip -

Due to Violence, I suggest skipping this Movie with Children.