07/02/97
MOVIE REVIEW: Wild America
How I survived my two brothers

By MICHAEL JANUSONIS
Journal-Bulletin Arts Writer

**** (out of five)
Starring Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Devon Sawa, Scott Bairstow, Frances Fisher, Jamey Sheridan, Tracey Walter, Don Stroud. A Warner Bros. release written by David Michael Wieger, directed by William Dear. Rated PG, contains violence, profanity. Running time: 106 minutes.



Three brothers travel across the West in 1967 looking for wild, dangerous, endangered animals in Wild America, a family film that's not only full of colossal adventures, but -- surprise! surprise! -- has meaningful things to say about the relationships between rebellious children and their parents.

In other words, it's exciting and intelligent, two words that don't often go together in movies -- particularly family movies -- anymore.

Wild America is loosely based on the real-life adventures of the Stouffer brothers of Fort Smith, Ark. -- Marty (Scott Bairstow), Mark (Devon Sawa) and Marshall (Jonathan Taylor Thomas).

Marty is the oldest, and the one who wants most to break away from what he perceives as his boring life under his father's thumb. Dad wants him to inherit the family used carburetor business, but Marty's a budding filmmaker who stages goofy little homemade thrillers, most featuring his hapless but game brother Marshall in desperately dangerous situations. (At one point Marshall is tied up and dumped into 10 feet of water while his brothers toss exploding firecrackers around him. Another time Marshall is dragged by a Jeep over a muddy race course while sitting in a sled fashioned out of an old car hood.)

Fortunately for his brothers, Marshall, who narrates the story, is a plucky 12-year-old daredevil willing to try anything, something that comes in handy later when he's being chased by a hungry alligator through a swamp, an angry grizzly through a cave full of bears or riding the antlers of an ornery moose down river rapids. Though based on a true story, it seems certain that the boys' adventures were embellished big time for the screen.

Much of the film's center revolves around their attempts to scout out wild animals, encouraged by a scary book about a man who was attacked by bears. Marty figures that if he can come back with some ferocious footage that he can sell to television, it will be his ticket out of Fort Smith. Their trek West has the impetuous foolhardiness of youth, but most of it is rip-roaring fun, even though some of the moose antics clearly employ trick photography and some of the bears look like men in bear suits.

But the boys get more than they bargained for in their Huckleberry Finn mode. Besides the alligator, the bears and the moose, they dodge bombs on an Air Force target range, watch a wolf stalk its prey, tiptoe around a cave full of rattlesnakes, get caught in the middle of a wild horse stampede and a flight of frightened bats. They also meet colorful characters, from skinny-dipping British hippie girls to a mountain man dressed in animal skins (too incredible to be true) to a reclusive woman in a lonely mountain cabin whose face was left scarred by a bear attack.



Awestruck adventurer

Wild America is told from the awe-struck standpoint of young Marshall, who is at the front of many of the adventures. At the start of the film he says that it's going to be a story about "how I survived my two older brothers." And just barely. Thomas, the star of TV's Home Improvement, is an unaffected actor with whom the younger members in the audience will readily identify. He's low-key, a young dreamer, and he makes even the most terrifying adventures look like fun.

Yet in a way, it's too bad that he's the star of the film, because more relevant is the story of Marty's attempts to break away from the cozy family nest. It's the central impetus for all the film's action, without actually being its central focus. Marty and Mark, nearly interchangeable, are one-dimensional characters.

David Michael Wieger's script bookends the adventure tale with scenes in Fort Smith, where Marty's dreams crash against the rocks of his father's stolid practicality. But Dad (Jamey Sheridan) proves to be a softie underneath. He's something of a dreamer himself, refitting an old World War II fighter plane in his barn and filling his sons' heads with tales of wartime airborne adventures, even though these prove to be just his own dream, too.

Their mother (Frances Fisher) understands how important it is for her sons to develop their own lives. Proud of her family, she works behind the scenes to give the boys the chance to follow their dreams and to see the possibility of limitless opportunities. She is an angel.



The feel of real brothers

Rather than slow the film, the Fort Smith scenes provide a grounding to the action as well as tension between the characters. The boys become real people, not just cardboard adventurers chasing bears and moose in the wild.

Director William Dear, who made the magical Angels in the Outfield, is good at working with youngsters and has a real feel for the way they interact. It's all underplayed, and creates an ensemble feel that these boys really are brothers.

Although the film has its corny moments and an exciting if unbelievably hokey showpiece ride in an airplane with Marshall at the controls in a sequence that mixes derring-do with fantasy, most of Wild America is solid entertainment.

On the way out of the screening, a boy said to his father, "Thank you for taking us, Daddy." What better recommendation could you want?