James Cromwell’s long run at the top of the A-list of in-demand supporting actors began with a story of a sheep farmer, his dogs and a pig named “Babe” back in 1995.
He landed a prime role in “L.A. Confidential” (1997) and delivered a stand-out turn, as well as scoring important supporting parts in “The Green Mile,” “Snow Falling on Cedars,” “Space Cowboys” and in the “Star Trek” universe.
But you can see some doubt behind his eyes and effort in “Owd Dowd,” a 1998 remake of a classic silent cinema weeper which cast him as, once again, a shepherd. “Babe: Pig in the City” came out the same year.
Was this to be his lot, forever pigeon-holed as grumpy, silent sheep farmers in Australia and the Isle of Man?
If you see one Cromwell shepherd and sheep dog-raising and competing movie, make it “Babe.” “Owd Bob” has little to recommend it aside from lovely Isle of Man scenery, non-talking sheepdogs in action and an over-familiar plot of a sullen, proud grandpa forced to take in a grandson that he barely knows when his estranged daughter and her husband die in a car crash.
Cromwell’s understated performance gives us the taste of the actor’s disappointment in a small-time production without much hope of getting noticed or even earning distribution. Still, a working vacation on the Isle of Man with sheepdogs should have been some consolation.
He plays Adam MacAdam, a solitary shepherd who tends his flock, keeps a tidy weathered cottage and ancient farm and competes his dog Zac in the island-wide sheep dog trials, where the tetchy canine dominates.
His neighbors think Adam’s a jerk and that his dog is a mean-spirited menace.
Then a social worker informs him that it’s Adam or the juvenile welfare system in America unless the farmer takes in young David (Dylan Provencher), orphaned by the death of his parents in a car crash.
David is unemotional about this “reunion” with a man he appears to have never met in his 13 or so years. Adam is stern, skeptical about fnding “somethin’ useful fer ya ta do.” The lad is perfectly willing to rebuild stone walls, muck out barns and tote bales of hay.
The one thing that excites his grandfather is those annnual dog trials, where he goes nose to nose with his hated neighbors, the Moores, led by Keith (Colm Meaney), and their dogs.
The Moores bear him no animus. Their sheep dog, “Owd Bob” (Old Bob, because of a touch of grey in his coat) shares a sire with Zac and is Zac’s only real competition.
But their ties are deep and a long-ago wound festers in Adam. He chases off fellow farmers in search of whose animal is killing their sheep, and the Moores, with the same threat.
“If you come back again, I’ll sic the dog onye!”
The hostility carries on into the pub where Adam takes his pint alone. And it extends to the Moores’ fetching daughter Maggie (Jemima Rooper), who takes an interest in the new boy and wants to show David the charms of her island world.
That disappointment one can sense in Cromwell’s performance seems to infect the rest of the cast. The now-legendary Meaney seems almost bored by how little he has to play around with in matched with a disengaged foil.
His Keith Moore is a farmer with a lot more on his mind than sheep and sheepdogs — a deathly-ill wife (Moira Booker) and a daughter he doesn’t want to raise here on the island by himself. His trophy case is as adorned as the MacAdams one.
But “a cup is just a cup, whatever your grandfather thinks.”
The story tracks along a path that could point towards reconciliation and greater understanding of others’ pain, or something more “Old Yeller” dog-centric. And there’s barely enough here to hold one’s interest.
The two leads would go on to greater glory. Provencher wouldn’t work in films or TV past childhood. But Rooper, an English Elizabeth McGovern look-alike in her youth and even today, has gone on to a career mostly on British TV and in smaller films (“What If,” an acclaimed “All My Sons”).
Cromwell, the son of a lower A-list director from Hollywood’s first Golden Age, wouldn’t return to the farm. But he’d make a lot more out of the small films that offered starring or co-starring roles (“Hideaway,” “The Education of Little Tree”) and of chewy smaller roles in prestige pictures (“The Queen,” “I, Robot”).
He’s been good enough for long enough that he’s developed a following. But “Owd Bob” isn’t one of his better films or his best efforts.
Rating: TV-PG, animal violence
Cast: James Cromwell, Dylan Provencher, Jemima Rooper, Moira Brooker and Colm Meaney.
Credits: Directed by Rodney Gibbons, scripted by Harry Alan Towers and Sharon Buckingham, based on a novel by Alfred Ollivant and the 1924 film “Owd Bob.” A Quiver release on Amazon Prime.
Running time: 1:35
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