Bear Island (1980)

Thanks for the memories!

Highly Overrated But Still Good

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

This is a confusing film that makes very poor use of an all-star cast. Widmark, Redgrave, Sutherland, Bridges, Lee and more plod their ways through a story which has little explanation until the very end, which is reached after far too long a time.None of the cast seem very enthusiastic, and much of the action is of the 'fast and furious' type, accompanied by loud music, often adopted in films with little to really shout about. The majority of the film makes little real sense with people being killed off but no one doing much about it except, of course, the hero played by Sutherland. People race around over the snow, over the ice and over the water, making maximum use of assorted vehicles, but to what purpose ? In the end, it's just another story about those pesky Nazis doing what Nazis always do - hiding in the shadows, murdering and stealing. Yawn ! It's 2 hours of very underwhelming and, frankly, largely boring stuff, made all the worse by the ridiculously overblown casting.Worst is that I'll never get those 2 hours back.

This has an interesting cast but that does not unfortunately, make it a good film. 'Bear Island' is based on a novel by Alistair Maclean, a popular writer from the sixties whose novels were consistently on the bestseller lists. The story is set on a boat cruising around the Arctic Circle, and is a strange amalgam of stilted action juxtaposed with a lot of endless talk about whose side everybody is supposed to be on. The ships passengers include Russians, Germans and Norwegians. They're all talking as if World War II is still going on, when the film appears to be set in the present day. The purpose of all this talk is to find a secret stash on the North Pole previously hidden by some- very- nasty- people, so it becomes a chase between the good guys and bad guys to get the loot and there is a lot of talky moralising on the part of the good guys about the virtues of looking for it at all.The luminaries in the cast include Donald Sutherland looking vague and bored, Vanessa Redgrave talking very softly (the good guys), and Richard Widmark and Lloyd Bridges (the bad guys). The only other notable thing about this film is that it includes a very bruising bareknuckle fistfight between Sutherland and how shall we say it, - an Aryan, which has something to do with – well I just don't remember but I think that Donald wins the fight and the good guys have at last something to cheer about.There are a number of meaningless chases across the snow and ice and a couple of explosions where a few minor characters get killed off but it all turns out right in the end. Vanessa Redgrave looks attractive in her fur lined anorak but doesn't have much to do. The scenic background of icebergs and endless floes of ice is effective and the only remotely fun thing about watching this film. Unfortunately none of it amounts to anything much, and the story is too dreary, old-hat and repetitive to be of any interest whatsoever.

I don't know this movie. I was looking it up because I enjoyed the book. I'm writing, because I do think that OCT, who gave a VERY negative review of the movie, damaged his/her credibility when he/she said that Alistair MacLean was out-of-print. Hey Oct, go to Amazon.com, do a search, type in the word "Alistair" and see if Alistair MacLean isn't the first option that pops up. Do you just pull "stuff" out of thin air or do you think a little and maybe do a little research first? I was incredulous of your lampooning of each and every member of the cast. These are solid actors... so I was questioning your motives. Then I flashed back to that NONSENSE about Alistair MacLean being out-of-print and realized that YOU should out-of-print.

I like this movie, great cast, Sutherland, Redgrave, Bridges, all in one movie? You couldn't ask for more. The pace is a bit slow though. But it is common, since this is a suspense, not action flick movie. the plot is fine, although is a bit confusing at the start. The best thing is that you keep guessing who's the bad guy. You'll never know until the end of this movie. Unfortunetely, my VHS version is kind of fading away. The picture is getting blurry. I assume it's because it's been almost 10 years. I'm actually looking for DVD version, but it's also very rare. Probably the movie is not a big hit, so they don't have it in DVD version. Anybody can tell me any site which I could download this movie?Thanks!