Project Grizzly (1996)

Director: Peter Lynch

Starring: Troy Hurtubise

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Whenever I have that dream... something bad happens.

Plot: A documentary follows a Canadian fellow working on his dream: building a suit of armor so he can observe grizzly bears from a close distance.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again? Nah.

While I give this only a 6.5 (still a good score), PROJECT GRIZZLY falls short in the final twenty minutes for what it doesn't do. If not, it could have easily been an 8. I love watching passionate people regardless of their intellect or where their passions lie (there are exceptions) - like Mark Borchardt in AMERICAN MOVIE (1999). Troy Hurtubise in PROJECT GRIZZLY is a lot like Mark, well, more like an accomplished Mark. Troy has an admirable goal but his reason for pursuing that dream isn't conventional. He also spent nearly $100,000 making the suit that will protect him from a grizzly attack. The build-up is well done and very humorous. Mark is a likable guy and his enthusiasm causes him to say some ridiculous things but it's forgivable. He means well. My disappointment is with him never getting to use the suit for its intended purpose after spending a week in the wilderness searching for "The Old Man", the name he respectfully calls the bear who confronted him many years before. Talk about taking the wind out of the sails. Everything leads to seeing the suit in action (we get to see plenty of hilarious trials and tests early on) in the field and then it just fizzles. Oh well, them's the breaks. Troy is a well-meaning man with a dream and I'm not going to piss on it.