Hatari! (1962)

Best movie of this year hands down!

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

"Hatari!" is one of those films they just don't make anymore. In this case, they couldn't; this film is probably much too leisurely and lacking in dramatic conflict to succeed with today's audiences. But if you are prepared to settle down for 157 minutes, "Hatari!" can entertain you. It has lots of magnificent animal footage, exciting action scenes, funny comedy, and predictable romance (well, it's not all predictable: the "comic relief" gets one of the girls). John Wayne is in a pleasingly relaxed and easygoing mood (he's not afraid to let others walk over his macho image), and the entire (ethnically diverse) cast develops a nice camaraderie. The fact that it was filmed on location also helps a lot. Parts of Henry Mancini's music score will be instantly recognizable even to people who watch the film for the first time! *** out of 4.

Sean Mercer (played by John Wayne) runs a business in East Africa. He and his team capture wild animals for zoos. It is dangerous work - on of his men almost dies after being gored by a rhino. He accepts a request from a photographer to join his business and capture their experiences but is very surprised, and bit inconvenienced, when the photographer turns out to be a woman. However, over time he grows fond of her. Meanwhile, plans to capture certain animals lead to all sorts of plans and adventures.Pretty much John Wayne on safari, with a romantic twist or two, and it works pretty well. Plot development is largely fairly conventional, though the setting is very original, and stunning. However, the movie is reasonably funny, the adventures are quite entertaining and there is a decent degree of engagement with the characters. Some cute moments with the animals too, especially the baby elephants. On that note, the movie gave the world the famous "Baby Elephant Walk" by Henry Mancini.The romantic side of the movie had the potential to weigh it down and turn it into a plodding, schmaltzy mess. Fortunately, however, the romance isn't overwrought and is kept to the minimum.Probably the best thing about the movie is that it is set in colonial Africa and has as its main characters people who hunt animals (for capture). This is bound to freak out modern-day history revisionists, social justice warrior trolls and similar morons. And if they're unhappy, I'm happy.

John Wayne set against an azure African sky, with the gentle thrum of Henry Mancini's score for accompaniment in search of wild animals to capture in the veldt. What else do you need?Not much, if you are director Henry Hawks. Which is what you get in this picturesque travelogue entertainment.Wayne is Sean Mercer, whose business is collecting dangerous Tanzanian wildlife for zoos. Already behind schedule, he is thrown for a loop when a Swiss zoo which buys many of his animals sends a beautiful photographer, Anna Maria D'Alessandro, a. k. a. "Dallas" (Elsa Martinelli), to tag along."Rhino, elephants, buffalo, and a greenhorn," huffs Sean.As other reviewers here rightly note, "Hatari!" is another in the Hawks mold featuring a group of adventure-ready characters coming together to handle adversity. Truth is, there's not much adversity here. Of course, the animal-catching is dangerous, something established right at the start when we see Sean's deputy Little Wolf (Bruce Cabot) get his leg gored by an angry rhino. But for the most part, this is a light entertainment with little story to interfere with the ambiance.Wayne is in his Grand Old Man mode here, leading a game supporting cast that includes Hardy Krüger and Red Buttons, who amiably vie for the attentions of young Brandy (Michèle Girardon), the daughter of Sean's former boss.Wayne gets off some choice one-liners. When a Frenchman nicknamed Chips (Gérard Blain) and Krüger's character come to blows, Sean tries to settle things peacefully. "You can't whip us all," he tells Chips."I can try!" Chips replies."Well, bring your lunch!"Not sure what that means, but it is a fun scene. There are many fun scenes in "Hatari!" In fact, the whole film is a collection of fun scenes cobbled together with long interludes of Mancini music, wisecracks, smoking, and drinking. I wouldn't recommend this 150-minute- plus film to just anyone, even with the very real-looking capture scenes to keep your attention. It just ambles along in its unhurried way, as if Hawks thought "Rio Bravo" was too quick breaking up the chatter with shoot-outs. Wayne only once fires a weapon, and that is to warn off a mother elephant who gets too close to Dallas and three orphan elephant calves who have adopted her.The cinematography by Russell Harlan got a deserved Oscar nomination; he was earning his keep even when Leigh Brackett's script devolves into an inane soap opera in the bush. Will Buttons' annoying Pockets character catch Brandy, or 500 monkeys in a tree? Will he know what to do with either if he does? The film doesn't seem to, and throws everything up in the air at the end with a merry chase involving a suddenly despondent Dallas that will please the ten-year-olds who like shots of elephants running through a hotel lobby.But since I am a Wayne fan, and enjoy beautiful scenery and entrancing music, I'm not much for complaining. Just a warning that this is more a jaunt than anything meaty, and that both patience and a fast-forward button may well come in handy.

I really enjoyed this movie, so much so that I have watched it several times on DVD. As always for any movie my criteria is 'was I entertained?' and I was certainly entertained. Red Buttons as Pockets was a delight. In fact all the performances were very good. The humour was fun, the scenery was beautiful and the animal chases were exciting and the baby elephants were cute and Sonja was gorgeous. Aside from things like the changing water level when Kurt and Chips Jeep was stalled in the river and after several references to 15 pounds and one reference to a shilling, when Pockets was taking up a collection to buy some goats he asked for 2 dollars from each person, but most things were fine and Pocket's rocket was great. The one thing that really stuck out for me as being very wrong was when The Indian aka Little Wolf was gored by the rhino, Pockets said (I think this is what he said - it's not in the Closed Caption and I'm a little hard of hearing) 'this tourniquet isn't doing any good' and then on the radio Sean said The Indian was bleeding badly and they would be at the hospital in about 5 hours. If Pocket's statement and Sean's statement were both accurate The Indian would have bled to death long before the 5 hours was up, probably in the first hour! Once I got past that rather lethal goof I sat back and just had fun.