October 1813, Canada. Tecumseh's band treks away from Detroit. The situation is bleak but Tecumseh (Jesse Borego) is confident that they will defeat the Long Knives (Americans) tomorrow. His sister, Starwatcher, is less confident. She soon recollects what had brought them to this place.
March 1768, Ohio. Tecumseh was born as a star streaked across the sky. This was a great omen and his father named him for the Panther in the Sky. All agreed he had a great future as a warrior.
October 1774, Ohio. Tecumseh's father has gone to fight the Long Knives in Virginia. While his father is away, Tecumseh has a nightmare/vision in which his father is killed. He sees the face of his father's killer and it stays with him.
Some years later, Tecumseh's mother departs to the west, leaving her children. Tecumseh will not go, as his father told him never to surrender land to the Long Knives. In time, he is old enough to go to war with his older brother, Chiksika. Though he fled in fear from his first battle, Tecumseh proved to be a natural warrior in his next. As the years progress, Tecumseh becomes a respected warrior who fights beside Chiksika and Blue Jacket (Holt McCallany), a white man who didn't want to live among the whites. They fight on the side of the British during the American Revolution
1794, The Battle of Fallen Timbers. Before the battle, Tecumseh viewed General Wayne through a looking glass. They would shoot this general during the battle. However, he also saw another man who had the face of his father's killer. The night before the battle, Chiksika declares that he will be killed and Tecumseh should carry on. As prophesized, Chiksika died. Worse, Blue Jacket signed the Treaty of Greenville.
Tecumseh had lived long enough to see the way of things. Each time the Indians signed a treaty for peace, it promised only a few such years before more encroachments led to further treaties that surrendered more land. The Long Knives played the tribes against each other. He must unite the tribes to resist further encroachment. It would require years. His younger brother, Tenskwatawa, had become a prophet and drew others to him. Here was the glue that might bind the tribes into a great confederacy.
William Henry Harrison (David Clennon) saw the threat of Tecumseh's plan. To him, America must expand and Tecumseh was an obstacle to be overcome. When the two met, Tecumseh saw the face of his father's killer in person. Though the two conversed and nearly came to blows, they could resolve nothing. A war was the only path forward.
The movie is surprisingly faithful to history. The dates and events are generally correct. Chiksika died two years before Fallen Timbers. Harrison was indeed an aide to General Wayne during the Fallen Timbers campaign but was only an infant when Tecumseh's father was killed. Clearly, this was just a vision to tie the long running conflict together at the end. The man who claimed to have killed Tecumseh, Richard Johnson, gets a brief cameo. The movie shows that only Tecumseh's band faced the American army at the Battle of the Thames. In fact, 700 British troops were also present, though the red coats and the Indians formed up separate from each other. Tecumseh's forces were stationed in marshy woods, not open fields. As shown, dragoons and mounted riflemen would have trampled the Indians.
Too much time is covered in the film, giving only brief glimpses of his life as the years pass. This covers a 45-year period! How about starting with the meeting of Tecumseh and Harrison in 1810 and concluding with the Battle of Thames in 1813. Yeah, that compresses things nicely and shows Tecumseh at his peak.
Entertaining and educational. Recommended.
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