The Donner Party (2009)

An unexpected masterpiece

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

The only reason I finished this movie was that I was waiting for it to get better. At one point I paused it and saw there was only 15 minutes left and was so bored I fast-forwarded through the rest.I expected one of two things, a movie out to entertain through shock value or an American Epic. I got neither. Therein lies the problem; the movie's scope simply isn't grand enough. With all the drama, betrayal, tragedy, desperation, and heartbreak that occurred during these events you'd think that you'd see some of it on screen. I'm no expert on the Donner Party, but as I understand the trip took months just to get to the point the film starts up. Where it proceeds to tell a small 2 week time frame about the hardships of the people who made an attempt at being rescued.This could have been a sprawling epic of the American Pioneer days on par with 'Dances with Wolves', yet we only get to see the small group and how hungry they are. That's it. We see nothing of what happened to the 30+ people back at the camp. I heard they had to resort to eating leather clothes and bones boiled so many times over they became brittle and edible, none of that made it into the film. If you cut out all of the establishing shots of snow and trees the movie wouldn't have even been an hour long.Bottom line, read the Wikipedia article, skip the movie.

According to the actual historical events that took place in the Donner Party, this film only resembles it in name, names of characters, and setting (then, too, not entirely accurate). Not even close. If this movie was named something else, it might have made it more enjoyable (If you can call watching this "enjoyable"). Even naming the movie "The Forlorn Hope" wouldn't have been accurate, but more fitting. Nothing was even said about the parties left behind or the survivors, and with the exception of the text at the end of the movie.This film is dismally plodding, which is about the only thing that resembled the Donner Party itself. Though beautifully shot and scored, and brilliantly acted, I can only give this a 3 star rating due to the script. If named something else to eliminate the historical inaccuracies, I might have only given it one more star.Someone please make a more accurate portrayal of this story! It is an incredible story of survival and hope!

Not being by any means an expert on the story of the Donner Party, I've nevertheless done some reading on the subject. It's one of the truly tragic stories of American history that should probably be better known than it is. I stumbled upon this movie quite by chance and decided to give it a go. The criticisms that I've read of it are - strangely - both accurate and unfair. It's true that there were some liberties taken with the story. This is by no means a documentary about this incident. If that's what you want, there are books and documentaries to be consulted. This is Hollywood entertainment - and apparently low budget entertainment as well. The film-makers had to deal with some significant production issues. Given some of the challenges they faced, I thought this turned out to be a workable movie that will hopefully whet the appetite of viewers for more information about this rather famous incident in American history. Yes, I know that some will see this and assume that because they've seen it they know everything about the subject. That's unfortunate, but it doesn't take away the fact that in general terms this portrayal of the story worked fairly well.Some criticize it for not being "interesting" enough. I'm not sure what those critics wanted. The liberties that were taken were done to inject a spark into the movie, and the movie is already criticized for doing that. This is a movie about desperate people facing desperate circumstances. It's not an action-thriller. It depicts the plight of the travellers. Some criticize it for a lack of character development. The funny thing is that's something I liked about this. I suppose an extra 30-60 minutes could have been added on to this to show the group gathering in Independence, Missouri and getting to know each other and travelling happily across the plains. Now that would have been dull. Instead, we pick up the party already in desperate circumstances. Perhaps the struggle of the trek through the Great Salt Desert would have been interesting. Aside from that (and it would have been difficult to jump from that to the point at which the movie actually started, and cumbersome to include the intervening time) I was happy enough with the story. It's true that perhaps the lack of character development meant we had little emotional connection to the characters, but the story was about the group and its plight and what it finally drove them to, not about the individuals.The material about cannibalism was, I thought, handled sensitively. It's often over-emphasized and sensationalized in tales about the Donner Party, almost as if there was a cannibalistic feeding frenzy that went on among them. In fact, it was a desperate, last resort when there was literally no other source of food. In that sense, this is a bit reminiscent of the movie "Alive" which also dealt with the issue of cannibalism in desperate circumstances, although "Alive" had a much more spiritual sense to it.Basically, I thought this was well done. (7/10)

Donner Party, The (2009) ** (out of 4) Disappointing telling of the now infamous Donner Party, a group of people traveling from Missouri to California but along their journey they decide to try a short-cut but this leads them into the Sierra Mountains where they become trapped by the snow. Our film starts off with them running out of food so a group of people try to walk away from the camp in hopes of finding safety but soon their chances of survival become even slimmer so they must resort to cannibalism. THE DONNER PARTY is a low-budget film that sadly never really gets anything right. This movie is far from being horrible but there's no denying that it's a major disappointment as the screenplay and direction just aren't what's needed for the material. The problem with the story itself is that there's never any real connection to any of the characters. There's no denying that what they're going through is quite depressing but this is only true because we know the real story. The "story" being told on the screen just never really grabs your attention and it certainly never pulls you into any sort of drama. There's not a single character in the film that you really care for and I can't believe the screenplay wouldn't develop them any more. Another problem with the story is that it's just not all that interesting. I think a better story would have been about the actual case involving them setting out, taking the wrong trail and then the winter stuff. Instead, we're given a story of a small party who set out to find help. Again, the screenplay just doesn't make it entertaining. I'd also say that the direction is at fault because there's not a bit of atmosphere throughout the film. This was another disappointment because there's not a single scene where you get to feel as if you're there with the people and that dramatic danger of what the characters are going through is something that never connects with the viewer. Clayne Crawford steals the film in his lead role and Crispin Glover is also pretty good in a very restrained performance. However, at the end of the day the performances aren't enough to make this movie. If you want to know about the Donner Party it's best to check out a book or some other documentary.