This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Ted Kotcheff directs "Winter People". Set during the Great Depression, it stars Kurt Russell as Wayland Jackson, a clockmaker who enters a small, Appalachian community. Here Jackson falls in love with Collie Wright (Kelly McGillis), a single mother whose child was fathered by a violent clansman."Winter People's" first act is interesting, well shot and boasts impressive location photography. By its third act, however, the film has morphed into a pretentious Shakespearean drama. Derivative of "Broken Lance" and "The Big Country", it sees stubborn, warring clans reconciling over the birth of a child. By the time a needlessly long last-act home invasion takes place, Kotcheff's script has both degenerated into clichés and entirely lost its shape. Lloyd Bridges co-stars.7/10 - Worth one viewing.

After 1:07, to be exact, and all that time, the story was weak, the lines were unrealistic, accents poor, characters unestablished buy two great actors, at that, finding it very hard to make some good out of what they had to work with, misc. were bad, it finally started getting interesting. Not a complete waste of time, but I almost killed it at 25 minutes, then started skipping till it got half way descent. I would not recommend this movie for 2 hrs of your life, unless it's all you got to watch up in a cabin; Snowed in. It's been done before. Same story at least a dozon times. I see a lot of people wrote good things about it, so don't take my opinion too seriously. It might have something I missed, that made it good. I just couldn't take anymore of the what the first 25 min. had to offer.

Deceptively marketed as a "Deliverance" retread, it has, in fact, more in common with Peter Weir's "Witness" and Richard Pearce's "Heartland". Kurt Russell plays Wayland Jackson, a humble widower who begins a new life with his daughter in North Carolina. When he meets and falls in love with Collie Wright (Kelly McGilis), he must prove his mettle to her father (Lloyd Bridges) and deal with local animosity towards him.Director Ted Kotcheff, who also made "First Blood", "Uncommon Valor" and the brilliant "Split Image", a scathing look at a religious sect, brings his considerable experience with personal politics to this well made, beautifully acted, snow-bound drama.The film's last act is where the violence flares and the stage is set for several bloody, taut altercations. The film, however, never loses sight of its personal story and focuses closely on the courage and resilience of good, honest folk.John Scott's score is hypnotic.

This is a film that took me by surprise. Impressive in its delicate sensiblity of the human emotions. This is best illustrated at Kurt Russell's outburst when one of his clocks is destroyed. Well directed and well acted. One of Russell's best acting performances. Not an action film, or anything to really rock you in your seat but a powerful human story. A+