Hatari!: Howard Hawks

In the auteur circles of film criticism, Howard Hawks' Hatari! is one of the most frequently referenced films of that great Hollywood master whenever his career is discussed. In the tradition of Only Angels Have Wings (1939), Red River (1948), and Rio Bravo (1959), Hatari! is a textbook example of Hawks' macho pictures that focus on groups of professional men working in dangerous professions. This time around the profession is catching wild animals in Africa to sell to zoos. John Wayne heads up a group of expatriates from all over the world who literally risk life and limb daily to capture these magnificent beasts. Incredibly, the scenes where Wayne and his men capture wild animals were real. These were shot first on location in Africa. It was only after all of this footage was captured that Hawks had frequent collaborator Leigh Brackett write up a script which connected these scenes together. Perhaps more than any of Hawks' other macho pictures, Hatari! concerns itself with its characters' lifestyles and the daily minutiae of their lives. This is both the film's biggest weakness and greatest strength. The decentralized plot leads to a punishing run time that clocks in at over 2 1/2 hours. But whereas a normal film would have been crippled by such length, Hatari! manages to sustain it. This is a film about Life on the Hunt; the empty moments in-between captures where the hunters wait for their next assignment and bide their time the best they can. The film also features Wayne at his most charismatic. Watch the scene where he kisses Elsa Martinelli's character despite her face being covered in cream. As he wipes the cream off his nose and smiles, it becomes immediately apparent why Wayne is one of the true immortals of the cinema.

7/10