Courage of the North: A dusty, dog-heavy adventure

If you're looking for a tight, high-stakes thriller, Courage of the North is probably going to bore you to tears. But if you have a soft spot for grainy, old-school westerns where the animals have more personality than the leads, pull up a chair. It’s a total relic, but there's something charming about how earnest it tries to be. 🐕

The plot is basically just a thin excuse to get some guys on horses riding through the woods. Sergeant Morton is told by White Feather that trappers are getting robbed, and that’s about as complex as it gets. It reminded me a bit of the simplicity in The Headless Horseman, though with significantly more snow and fewer ghosts.

Dynamite the Horse is the real star here.

I’m not joking. Every time the horse or the dog, Captain, gets a close-up, the movie feels a thousand times more alive. There’s a scene where the dog does something so oddly specific that I had to rewind it twice. It’s the kind of unpolished moment you just don't see in modern studio stuff.

The human actors are mostly just moving pieces. They stand there, they deliver lines that feel like they were written on the back of a napkin five minutes before filming, and then they ride off into the brush. It’s not good acting, but it feels honest in a weird, dusty sort of way.

• The pacing is all over the place.
• Some of the outdoor shots look like they were filmed in someone's backyard.
• The horse really does deserve top billing.

I found myself zoning out during the long exposition scenes, only to perk up whenever the dog started barking at a tree. It’s that kind of movie. Don't go in expecting a masterpiece like The Pointing Finger. It’s just a scrappy little film that knows exactly what it is.

Is it a classic? Absolutely not. Would I watch it again on a rainy Sunday while folding laundry? Yeah, probably. There's a comfort in how predictable it is. It’s just a guy, a horse, a dog, and a very slow-moving mystery that eventually sorts itself out. Sometimes, that’s plenty. 🐎