Lost On A Mountain In Maine has a title that says it all. The premise of the film is pretty simple, but the execution of the story is more complicated. I would rather have a much more complicated story than a straightforward one. It makes for a much better viewing experience for me and others who may watch this movie.  The director, Andrew Boodhoo Knightlinger did as much creatively with this story as he could, and it shows in the final product.

Donn and Ryan (Luke David Blumm, Griffin Wallace Henkel) are twin brothers who live with their parents and little brother. They bicker with each other a lot but it’s because they’re stuck living far away from civilization.  When their father, Donald Fendler Sr. (Paul Sparks) comes home from a long work trip. They get excited because they are anticipating a two-week fishing trip with him. Until he gives them the bad news in the fact that he can’t go because he has to go back to work in a few days.  Instead, he tells them he will take them on a long hike up a nearby mountain. Reluctantly Donn who was upset about not going fishing agrees and they head out on the hill group. Trek gets a little treacherous and the weather sets in and the father decides to turn back. Except Donn doesn’t want to. He convinces his father he wants to keep going. The weather gets bad and one of the boys gets lost in the fog and gets separated from the rest of the group.

This story is based on a book of the same name by Donn Fendler, the boy who got lost in the story. It takes place on July 15th, 1939. Unlike today there weren’t any cell phones or ways to communicate if someone got lost in the woods. The director does some things with the story that make it different from other survival tales. He interspersed scenes of the people who were involved in the event as talking heads, like in a documentary. Their thoughts and opinions on the situation broke up the monotony of the story. It was a good dichotomy of a boy being lost in the woods fighting for survival and his family looking for him.

Two things that made this movie a little relatable for me were the twin brothers who bickered and fought with each other. I am a twin with my brother David and we did this as kids sometimes. Two sides of the same person in a lot of ways. Both have different ideas on what to do and how to do it. It was uncanny watching these two boys in the film. The second thing was my family used to visit Maine when I was a kid, but it wasn’t this part of Maine. It was closer to the ocean around Ogunquit.  There are vast expanses of wilderness around the mountain featured in the story. It’s easy for a kid to get separated from his family and friends and to get lost. This wasn’t the same Maine as when me and my family visited in the 80s.

There have been a lot of survival stories turned into films and sometimes they are very realistic and other times not so much. Castaway, is one of my favorites because it shows the audience watching the things the main character does to survive the conditions. The boy in this film has an injury which he tries to care for, he also tries to catch a fish, but that’s all he does. Besides hiking and sleeping. It’s not much of a survival tale from my perspective.  That part of the story didn’t work as well as I’d hoped it would.

The cast of the movie is all relatively new to me except for Paul Sparks. He’s played fathers and bad guys in many films and television shows in the past. He plays the typical father that would exist during this time in American history. He’s a bit hard on his kids, but when Donn gets lost, he realizes he needs to be a more loving, compassionate man. Sparks plays this role similarly to others he’s played in the past. He doesn’t have a lot of range as an actor.  I’m used to seeing him in those other types of roles. It’s hard to see him as a good man who’s trying to be an even better father.

The actor, Blumm, who plays the main boy in the movie is good in the role. He’s a bit one-note though. The anger he has at his father is all that the character shows and the only emotion the actor shows. I wished the boy would have shown more emotion in his acting. The survival scenes didn’t give me much either. Except for one scene where he yells once he realizes he’s lost. As a young actor, he’ll have time to grow and get better though.

Lost On A Mountain In Maine wasn’t as good as I’d hoped it would be. It has moments where I was invested in the story and direction by Knightlinger. The acting was mostly one-note performances from Sparks and the boys, specifically Blumm. I liked the documentary aspects of the film explaining the first-hand accounts of the events that transpired. Overall this isn’t a bad movie, but it could have been handled better if it were in the hands of a better director.  Maybe the producer Sylvester Stallone. 

2 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen