Desperate Search

This film shows the age-old problem of trying to transfer a good book to film. Too many changes were made that shouldn't. In the book Janet is only 2 and a half, not much more than a baby and still in diapers. She is not easy on the trip, but not bad either. The ex-wife is not a rival pilot but an actress who has custody of the children but doesn't really care about them. When she goes up with her ex-husband as a spotter, she falls asleep and misses seeing them. The love interest is a girl reporter. If they hadn't made these changes the movie would have been so much better!

. . . has never produced a Sarah Palin, Eleanor Roosevelt, Amelia Earhart, Dolly Madison, Betsy Ross or even a Pocahontas. As DESPERATE SEARCH documents, all Canadian wenches do is to scream, wail, back-stab and bellyache. These chronic complainers drive most of their male counterparts to drink, as depicted here. The rest of Canadian men take out their frustration over these distaff despots by clubbing baby seals to death, and then forcing their spouses to wear the bloody fur. Since this tale's fall guy is saddled with a trio of flighty floozy frights, he finds himself impelled to slaughter an endangered mountain lion with a willow switch. Doubtless our new White House occupant will build his own wall Up North to stymie contamination from Canadian immigrants.

Donny and Janet Heldon are visiting their father bush pilot Vince Heldon and his new wife Julie in Canada. They have fly home alone to their mother in Seattle. The plane goes down in the wilderness and the kids are alone against the wild. The exes and others struggle in a search for the missing plane. This is half good. The adults' squabbles are rather dull. There is surprisingly little action in their half of the movie. They don't make flying around all that exciting. Their melodrama and their discussions are all low key. This movie should be all about the kids. Little Janet is really good at crying and the cougar is actually scary. Donny is being too adult sometimes but the kid is a good little actor. The two kids facing off against the cougar is the best part of this movie.

Overall, I enjoyed this little film, but what almost forced me to give up on it was young Janet's incessant whining and crying throughout the ordeal. Her older brother should have received a medal for putting up with her.