This was listed as a horror movie by Netflick. It is not a horror movie by the "conventional" means of paranoia/ghosts/random asshole murderer, but more along the lines of Heart of Darkness type horror. This is quite obvious by the tone set in the film, and the low-key music constantly throbbing like a nihilistic slasher flick.

what made this film compelling to me was its depiction of American soldiers in the war of 1812. well aware it was a very cynical and exploitative war which did not see the best of America in any real way, and depicting each American character with a hint of ugliness and griminess that is at once artistically driven while also completely believable and realistic. It would likely make more sense for the small group to mostly consist of young men with barely shaven beards, rather than the motley arrangement of human horrors we get.

The scene in which they come into contact with the protagonists, a british agent Joshua trying to persuade a local Mohican group to join them in the war against the americans, and the niece and nephew of some of the leaders, "Oak" and Calvin, who despite another reviewer complaining of Oak having blue eyes, are both played by actual Native American/Mohican actors.

Much of the film becomes a bloody hunt as the tiny detachment of American soldiers try to capture the british agent and have to deal with him and the mohawks with him.

It does get bloody at times, but it was nowhere near the level of gore or blood that would've been expected. We never get any real "gore" until the very end, and even then in a very quick, split-second shot of someone's hand split in half.

Throughout the hunt, we are mostly focused on the Americans rather than Oak and Joshua and Calvin, and as such we get to see them interact privately in a way that drops their initial "Ugly American" bravado and humanizes them in a way which makes their continued actions the more gruesome for their brutality.

but the problem is that not enough of this is actually shown, nor even really mentioned. There's a few references to off-screen massacres that had happened, committed by the Mohawks, followed by a sort of reprisal by the Americans, but we are simply not given enough in the way of building up the "journey" for this group.

They are not inherently evil, yet they are doing some inherently evil acts, and it is clearly affecting them all on a psychological level. Even Oak and her group find themselves becoming hardened to the bloodshed, but not in a way that really crosses over into that realm of "darkness" that could metaphorically push a man to become a beast.

It is a similar sort of "journey" that makes up the story of Heart of Darkness / Apocalypse Now, but there's really just not enough happening in this journey to fully arrive at the dramatic "turning point", so that the events as they unfold start to become repetitive, and the movie goes into its ending without much satisfaction.

MOHAWK is an indie action/adventure movie masquerading as a big budget production. It's a historical story, set during the War of 1812, in which Native American characters find themselves harassed, tortured, and excuted by some very unpleasant American soldiers. Variously it recalls APOCALYPTO and THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS, but overall it's rather a disappointing effort, one of those cheapies set in the woods which tells a small-scale and limited storyline. The emphasis is on telling a visually storyline with a lot of pain and bloodshed, but when you care nothing for the characters involved then this all becomes rather passe as a result. On the plus side, the costumes and occasional set are quite realistic, so it's just a pity that aimless, meandering storyline couldn't add any oomph to the tale.

No idea what this was.

On the face of it, 'Mohawk' looks like it could be an interesting film - hence why I chose to watch it. That is not the case though, it is a pure waste of ninety-two minutes.

There isn't one top performer in the cast. I won't single out any individuals in a negative way, given none of them gave anything truly that much worse than their counterparts, but not one stands out positively - at a push, Ian Colletti and David La Haye would be the only ones I'd praise and they weren't even on-screen for long at all.

The scale of this is way off also. There's apparently a major war happening nearby yet we never get even an inch of incident from it. For the vast majority, it feels like you are just watching a group of people in a local forest.

It's nothing personal to anyone involved, it never is from me, and I'm sure they've all given/will give better, but this is an extremely poor film.