This true story of Archie Grey Owl (Brosnan), a fake Indian guide and writer, shows his inspiring the world with genuine stories of wilderness life and his pleas to protect forests and the animals in them. Grey Owl's ecological stance doesn't ennoble his being a fake, but the film admits that people turned against his ideas after he was revealed, and only much later did people generally become ecologically-minded. Attenborough, who says it doesn't matter whether Grey Owl was a fake, shows Grey Owl pushed into giving his first talk by his girlfriend Pony, and writing books only because a publisher pressured him to. At the beginning of the film, Grey Owl traps beavers, but when he comes to his senses about the environmental damage he's causing, he crusades around the world on behalf of wildlife and wild places.

"Grey Owl" went straight to video in the U.S., and Attenborough has complained because he believes U.S. distributors don't buy movies without sex or explosions.

Please note that some animals die in the film, and that the film perhaps works best if you come to it not knowing that Grey Owl was a fake.