Robinson Crusoe (1997)

The title character of Daniel Defoe's 1717 novel, ROBINSON CRUSOE (Pierce Brosnan), is an educated Scot whose fortunes disappear just as he's about to marry his longtime love, Mary (Polly Walker). When she's forcibly betrothed to Crusoe's friend, a duel ensues, and the friend dies, impaled on a sword. Fearing reprisals, Crusoe takes to the sea, promising to return to his waiting Mary in a year. A storm destroys the ship and Crusoe survives, spending the next six years on a remote island. He gathers tools, weapons, and supplies from the hull of his ship and uses ingenuity and his wits to make a life. When he stumbles on a violent tribe making human sacrifices, he fires on the killers and saves a man (William Takaku) from death. He names the man Friday and, shockingly, chains him up. As Crusoe recognizes Friday's intelligence and other gifts, he sees the absurdity of his biased views and the horror of slavery. Although it seems he's learned his lesson about the emptiness of white superiority, he still tries to force Christianity on Friday. Friday's convictions about his own god persuade Crusoe that there may be more than one way to look at the world and to explain the mysteries of life. The violent tribe attacks Crusoe and Friday repeatedly, but together they use their wits and bullets and gun powder to beat the intruders back. Eventually the men are captured and forced by a tribe to fight a duel to the death. Spoiler alert: Crusoe again refuses to kill a friend in a duel, but white slavers, thinking they are rescuing a fellow white man, kill Friday. They enslave the tribe and bring Crusoe back to Europe.