Cebalord
Very best movie i ever watch
Ceticultsot
Beautiful, moving film.
Logan
By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.
Robert J. Maxwell
This film a clef presents Peter Viertel, who had a hand in writing "The African Queen," as what appears to be the principal author of the screenplay. Since he was present during the shooting of "The African Queen" (1951) and since he wrote this fictionalized account of the making of the movie, he's intelligent, sensitive, handsome, talented, and humane. He's played by Jeff Fahey, who is at least handsome, whatever else he is.The real director was John Huston who wound up making one of the best-crafted films of his career in Africa. He's played by the director of the current movie, Clint Eastwood. Eastwood is hired to shoot the film but his real interest -- his passion -- isn't making the movie but rather shooting a bull elephant. He keeps putting off the movie in pursuit of the game. The shooting of "The African Queen" doesn't even begin until the very end, and the last word is "action." I hope I didn't get that too mixed up. The plot is easy enough to follow but describing it is a bit of a challenge. It's not about shooting "The African Queen." It's about preparing to shoot "The Afican Queen." The Katherine Hepburn character (Marissa Berenson) appears only briefly and has a few lines. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall are barely noticeable.Eastwood, who also directed, does a recognizable impersonation of John Huston's distinctive intonations. That's the easy part. I can do it myself. The script initially gives us a cheerful, charming, and witty Huston, all smiles and cigarillos. Drunkenly, nobly, he gets into a fist fight with a bigger and younger man and is pounded to the ground. His friends help him to his feet and one of them says, "We'd better get a doctor." "He's hurt that bad, huh?", Eastwood gasps.But once we get to Africa the story turns a bit and so does Eastwood. He loses whatever sense of responsibility he had to the producers and crew and concentrates on finding that damned big tusker he wants as a trophy. I could never understand why anyone would want to shoot and kill a mammoth like that. They're a danger to no one. They eat grass and leaves and mind their own business. This is being written three weeks after poachers in a national park in Zimbabwe poisoned an elephant watering hole and killed about 300 of the beasts.At any rate, this film reminded me of a short from an entirely different genre. Laurel and Hardy are preparing a boat they intend to launch. They saw away at it, step the mast, paint the hull. All kinds of pratfalls and mistakes take place. The boat sinks the moment it touches water. The whole comedy was a set up for a much larger adventure that never comes off.Instead of a story about the actual making of "The African Queen," which was quite an adventure in itself, we have a character study of a John-Huston-like figure. And it fails to really come off, even as a character study. In the penultimate scene, Eastwood confronts a huge elephant who presents him with a perfect shot only a few feet away. Eastwood doesn't shoot. Okay. I understand that much. Faced with such magnificence, Eastwood experiences finally a kind of external reality. There are values that transcend his own.But then his "native bearer" and admired friend, Kivu, sacrifices his own life to save Eastwood's. I don't believe it. And when Eastwood and company return to begin shooting the picture, just after the death, Eastwood looks glum, but I have no idea what he's thinking beyond the obvious remorse.It's colorful and Huston was a Byronic figure, but this ought to be more fun than it is.
GUENOT PHILIPPE
I have never liked Clint Eastwood, too many predictable and all the same kinds of characters in nearly all his films - as a director and or actor. Never liked him. But I must admit that I really enjoyed this very one. Besides the fact that it is an awesome "hommage" to the great John Huston - every movie buff already knows that - I LOVED the sequence where Eastwood talks to the antisemitic gal, in the restaurant and also the great scene where he got beaten up by the guy - I don't know the actor's name. A very great moment. AT LAST the Eastwood character fails...What a wonderful surprise.And the overall feeling of this movie I saw twenty three years ago makes me say that it's one of the best Eastwood's picture, and unfortunately the least known.
Petri Pelkonen
Director John Wilson goes to Africa to make his next film.With him is a young writer named Pete Verrill.The making of the movie becomes harder when John develops an obsession of killing an elephant.Even though he knows it's not just a crime against nature to do such a deed, but a sin.Clint Eastwood, who turned 80 earlier this year, is the director of White Hunter, Black Heart (1990).The story is obviously based on the experiences of John Huston when he went to make The African Queen.Clint does a great job in the lead as John Hus...I mean Wilson.Jeff Fahey is terrific as Pete Verrill.Charlotte Cornwell is very good as Miss Wilding.George Dzundza is superb as Paul Landers.Eastwood, who still keeps working like crazy, has made better pictures than this.But still, it's pretty entertaining to watch this African adventure.
inspectors71
And I'm not talking painting. White Hunter, Black Heart is an admirable failure, a film that tries vainly and unsuccessfully to peer into the complex genius of an artist. I call WHBH admirable because Clint Eastwood could not possibly have believed this movie would be a commercial success, yet he made it anyway. It is an actors' movie, a film designed to allow the director and his crew to experiment with a serious subject-and consequential themes--without worrying about the commercial side of the production.The movie is a failure because even with all the hard work from cast and crew, we ultimately don't much care if the movie on screen, a thinly veiled African Queen, gets made. From Eastwood's character on down, there just isn't an emotional bonding that makes the viewer stick to the screen with an adhesive caring. Instead, we get two hours of Clint doing a more humorous than serious John Huston impression.I didn't enjoy White Hunter, Black Heart. I didn't hate it either. Instead, I observed it, the way I observe some impressionist paintings. I can see the use of color, the vibrancy of the brush strokes, the composition, but the whole never gels.A lot of work with no heart-felt payoff.
