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American Indians were "cool" in 1970, the year A Man Called Horse made its vigorous, feverishly real, and occasionally shocking debut alongside Little Big Man and Soldier Blue. Unlike the latter two films, however, Horse is less an allegory for Vietnam-era America and more of a vision quest for historical identity. In one of his defining roles, Richard Harris plays an English aristocrat captured by Dakota Sioux in 1825. Over time, he adopts their way of life and eventually becomes tribal leader--but not before undergoing savage initiation rituals, the most famous of which involves being suspended by blades inserted beneath Harris's pectoral muscles. Horse looks clunky, quaint, and inadvertently demeaning in some respects today, but the film's Native-American milieu is at least defined on its own terms, making no concessions to familiar Western conventions. The real draw is Harris, whose performance has a soulful integrity. --Tom Keogh

Release Date: Jun 7, 2004