Eight Below (DVD)

Eight Below

After an Antarctic guide and his charge are rescued from a deadly storm by a team of eight sled dogs, they are forced to temporarily evacuate their base, leaving the dogs chained behind so they will not break fre and get lost.

The temporary evacuation becomes permanent (through the winter season) and the guide becomes fixated on returning to the dogs, not knowing if they are dead or alive.

We switch back and forth between the guide's story of loneliness mixed with determination, and the dogs, over a period of close to six months/ All but one of the dog team (Old Jack) have broken free, and go searching for food. When they hunt for birds and get hold of a few ,Shorty the white one shares his meal with Max, the pup of the bunch. A second dog Dewey of the Truman and Dewey twins is lost to a fall, and a third dog named Maya-- the guide's favorite, leader of the pack, and apparently most cunning of the bunch -- is injured in a fight with a leopard seal. We see the dogs learn to hunt and survive.

The final act of the movie shows the guide, his would-be-girlfriend pilot, and two other explorers wangle an expedition via ice-cutter, helicopter, and snowcat (a large muti-section tracked vehicle for high-speed snow travel). They retrun to the orignal base, find the five healthy dogs Shorty, Max, Truman, Shadow and Buck and just barely find the near-dead sixth dog Maya.