North Star

North Star is a 1996 American Western film starring James Caan, Christopher Lambert and Catherine McCormack. Directed by Nils Gaup, it was written by Sergio Donati and loosely based on Henry Wilson Allen's 1956 Western novel The North Star. Lambert executive produced the film. Plot summary At the beginning of the Nome Gold Rush in 1899, Sean McLennon (Caan), a Scots-Irish-American land baron, owns the majority of property titles surrounding Nome and declares that only American citizens are legally entitled to placer claims. He uses power, influence and nationalism to make local politics and law enforcement work in his favor. Unbeknownst to those outside of McLennon's gang, the original owners of the land were all killed on McLennon's orders. The gang's latest target, Hudson Santeek (Lambert) narrowly escapes the attempt on his life but not before witnessing McLennon's right-hand thug, Reno (Burt Young) murder Santeek's adoptive father - an elderly Athabaskan tribal chief - in cold blood. Santeek, who is half white and half American Indian, had "purchased" his surrogate family's land in a bid to keep miners away. Santeek returns to Nome to confront McLennon at knifepoint in his bedroom, but Sarah (McCormack) McLennon's young Irish immigrant trophy wife, intervenes at gunpoint; McLennon disarms Santeek and the two engage in a fight. After Santeek floors McLennon, he kidnaps Sarah, steals a dogsled and rides off into the Alaskan wilderness. Without the permission of the local sheriff, McLennon forms a posse and treks out into the tundra to kill Santeek and rescue his wife.