What starts off looking like a potentially enjoyable nature film dealing with a bit of a disturbing story ends up a rather tedious adventure that exposes the worst of mankind while showing the best of the animal kingdom. The flight of a majestic eagle opens the film, and that grand spread of those long wings is truly haunting. But then we get to the disturbing aspect of the film. The presence of Donald Pleasance is truly creepy as the sickening obsession with his character to get his hand on some bald eagle eggs has him hiring Powers Boothe for the job, to venture Into the Woods, get to the top of a remote class and steal the eggs to bring back to him. When he gets there, he encounters single mom Kathleen Turner, reclusive Rutger Hauer and a group of hicks who end up stalking them, turning the expedition into a violent nightmare.

Yes, the countryside setting of this film is gorgeous, and there are a few breathtaking moments. They come across town apparently wounded deer, shot by a hunter and left for dead, and treated with a flask of alcohol and some rope used as stitches. The beautiful deer seems to realize that it is being taken care of and doesn't flinch during the procedure, allowing them to take care of it without trying to get away. But you don't find out if it did indeed got better, and the cutaway takes you to the next scene. The reclusive Hauer and Boothe get drunk in a cabin in the woods (I was never sure whose it was) and all of a sudden, Hauer is seen with a baby bear on his lap. How it got there is never explained, and when Bauer falls over drunk, the bear is still attached to his waste. A sex scene with Boothe and a local girl, Jayne Betzen, comes out of nowhere and really has no point in being included in the first place.

The way Pleasance speaks his lines is really disconcerting, and he plays his part as if he's a villain in a James Bond movie. Certainly, he's present to represent an entitled billionaire who gets what he wants without regard to the world around him, and he's never out in nature to be taken care of it. When Boothe calls him in regards to a murder charge that is tossed at him regarding the battle he had with the bumpkins stalking him, Pleasance basically tells him to get out of that no matter what it takes and go on with his mission. Turner is always worth watching, and her kid is cute too, but that's not enough to explain some of the missing footage from the missing reel that never arrived. One rule of thumb for filmmakers. If you don't have the whole film as intended, don't call it a done project. So much potential wasted because of behind-the-scenes business that was never completed.

Rutger Hauer does a typically fine job as Jim Malden, a nature-loving recluse who lives on a privately owned island. Taking care of the animals there is everything to him. A local store keeper, Stella Clayton (a radiant Kathleen Turner),is obviously sweet on him, but he has a knack for pushing people away. (He's one of those movie characters who has turned his back on society after tragedy in his past.) Into their lives comes Mike (Powers Boothe),an expert mountain climber. Mike needs a lot of money for his latest ambitious venture, and hooks up with a creepy collector (Donald Pleasence),who's offered him six figures to steal some bald eagle eggs; these eggs belong to a new (fictional) subspecies that are bigger than ordinary bald eagles.

Directed by cult favourite Philippe Mora ("Mad Dog Morgan", "The Beast Within", "Howling" II and III),"A Breed Apart" is the kind of film more noteworthy for its good intentions than for whatever it actually accomplishes. However, while the script seems to be full of unresolved subplots, this is supposedly because one full reel disappeared while en route from North Carolina to California. The human stories have some appeal, but are trite compared to some of the films' bigger messages and majestic outdoors scenery. One cliched plot point has a pair of braindead, yahoo hunters played by Brion James and John Dennis Johnston seeking revenge against Malden. This leads to predictable developments.

The biggest question that Paul Wheelers' script poses is whether or not Mike will exit the somewhat grey moral area that he currently occupies. The man is something of an enigma, and delights in wasting the time of a sexy reporter (Jayne Bentzen) looking for her big breakthrough story.

The actors are entertaining to watch. Hauer is playing a cliched character (a "noble savage" as Mike calls him),and the charismatic Boothe and the lovely Turner have more interesting roles to play. Pleasence is effective in his select few scenes; James and Johnston are standard-issue but amusing redneck antagonists. (The latter is a semi-regular in the films of Mora.)

Notable for an atmospheric electronic score composed by Maurice Gibb of the Bee-Gees, and its exquisite photography by Geoffrey Stephenson.

In real life, the bald eagle WAS at risk of becoming extinct in 1984, but fortunately its numbers subsequently improved.

Seven out of 10.

I watched this film when it was recently shown on British television, largely because of my interest in bird watching and nature conservation (although the looks of the young Kathleen Turner might also have been a factor). The story revolves around the doings of egg collectors (or "oologists" as they sometimes call themselves),a breed of men which I, in common with most ornithologists, struggle to understand; if, as they claim, they are motivated by a love of nature, why do they persist in endangering through their activities the very creatures they profess to love? J.P. Whittier, an obsessive and very wealthy egg collector, is trying to obtain specimens of the eggs of a newly discovered (and fictitious) subspecies of the bald eagle. In reality there are two existing subspecies of this bird, the northern and the southern, although the supposed new variety is said to be larger than either. At the time the film was made in 1984 the bald eagle was on the brink of extinction in the continental United States, although its numbers have since recovered and it was removed from the list of endangered species in 2007.

Whittier is well aware that stealing its eggs will be likely to push the new subspecies closer to extinction, but is nevertheless determined to proceed with his scheme. Because the only known nest is on top of a lofty crag, he hires rock climber Mike Walker to steal the eggs for him. Although Walker can no more comprehend Whittier's motivation than I can, he is tempted by the huge sum of money he is offered. There is, however, a problem. The nest is on land owned by Jim Malden, a reclusive and eccentric conservationist who fiercely guards both his privacy and the wildlife on his land, going so far as to attack hunters with a crossbow when he catches them poaching. To allay Malden's suspicions, Walker poses as a photographer. Turner plays Stella Clayton, a local storekeeper in whom both men are romantically interested. Stella is presumably a widow or divorcée, as she has a young son, Adam. Turner may have taken the part in order to try and play down the "femme fatale" image she had acquired after "Body Heat".

"Variety" magazine accused the film of lacking dramatic tension or emotional involvement, and there is justice in the accusation. The main villain of the piece is Whittier, and he always keeps well away from the action. Walker, even at the beginning of the film, never seems very villainous, and by the end he is not a villain at all, having been converted to the conservationist cause by Jim and Stella. Malden is not always entirely sympathetic, seeming at times too fanatical and obsessive; putting a crossbow bolt through someone's leg is not generally regarded as the act of a Christian gentleman, even if done in an ostensibly good cause.

The plot does not always flow very smoothly and there is, apparently, a reason for this. After filming had been completed, one of four reels of film went missing and the director Philippe Mora had, somehow, to put a coherent story together from the remaining three. Despite some attractive shots of the North Carolina scenery, "A Breed Apart" is a routine action thriller which is not always very thrilling, but given its strange history the finished product could have been much worse. 5/10