"Roar" is a movie that manages to be nerve-wracking as well as tedious to sit through. Tedious because there's no story to speak of; nerve-wracking because of what the cast and crew reportedly went through to produce it.
"Roar" is about an American named Hank (Noel Marshall) who has gone to Africa where he can study lions up close - *really* close. To this end, he's constructed a private refuge and house where lions are free to wander about, inside and out. A *lot* of lions. And tigers. And leopards. And cougars. On this particular day, Hank is awaiting a visit from his estranged wife Madelaine (Tippi Hedren) and their grown children, who have traveled all the way from the States. But due to a lack of communications, Hank spends several hours headed to the airfield while his wife, sons and daughter make it to the refuge on their own. Once there, wife and kids are intimidated, when not downright terrified, by their close encounters with Hank's "friends" until they eventually decide the creatures aren't so bad after all. Dad finally shows up - and that's it, really. That's the whole movie, aside from a half-hearted subplot involving a couple of villainous big game poachers. You'd think that once the family settles down, "Roar" would start to tell a real story about something more substantial, but instead we get a cheerful, hopeful song accompanying a montage of the family interacting with the animals, and... the movie ends. (Just as well. At this point, I really didn't want it to keep going.)
Said to have been a pet project (you should forgive the term) of Tippi Hedren and her then- husband, Noel Marshall, "Roar" reportedly cost $17 million, much of it their own money, and earned back only a fraction of its cost. It's certainly a sincere and heartfelt plea for wildlife conservation. But as I sat there, the film's opening disclaimer about how only "untrained animals" were used kept rattling in my brain.
Untrained animals. It was alarming to see all these lovingly filmed scenes of lions playing (i.e. fighting) with each other. And seeing the actors let themselves be swarmed or pursued by the lions was downright heart-pounding. (I soon lost track of how many times I silently shouted, "Are you crazy?") "Roar" was a true family affair, with Noel Marshall's real-life sons and Tippi Hedren's real-life daughter, Melanie Griffith, playing the kids. (If I ever get to meet Melanie Griffith, who here plays a character named "Melanie," I must ask her about the scene in which she allowed one of the lions to pin her to the floor, face-down.)
"Roar" seems to tell you that lions are just a bunch of oversized pussycats with big, sharp claws - treat 'em right, don't let them sense fear, stand up to them when necessary, let them lick and paw you to their hearts' content, and everything will be just fine, the occasional bad scratch notwithstanding. The thing is, just about everyone connected with this production was injured by the animals at one point or another, including the actors. (By unhappy happenstance, I saw this film about a month after the death in South Africa of Hollywood visual effects editor Katherine Chappell, who'd made the awful mistake of rolling down a car window during a visit to a lion park to take a picture, and was attacked and fatally bitten by a lioness.)
Perhaps instead of making a "real" movie, Hedren and Marshall would have done better to have made a documentary about the wildlife they obviously admire so much. And speaking of documentary, if they had done a behind-the-scenes film about the making of this movie, that film could very well have been much more interesting than "Roar."
By the way, "Roar" was beautifully photographed in Metrocolor. As in MGM. As in... lion? (Coincidence? Of course, but I couldn't resist.)
"Roar" is about an American named Hank (Noel Marshall) who has gone to Africa where he can study lions up close - *really* close. To this end, he's constructed a private refuge and house where lions are free to wander about, inside and out. A *lot* of lions. And tigers. And leopards. And cougars. On this particular day, Hank is awaiting a visit from his estranged wife Madelaine (Tippi Hedren) and their grown children, who have traveled all the way from the States. But due to a lack of communications, Hank spends several hours headed to the airfield while his wife, sons and daughter make it to the refuge on their own. Once there, wife and kids are intimidated, when not downright terrified, by their close encounters with Hank's "friends" until they eventually decide the creatures aren't so bad after all. Dad finally shows up - and that's it, really. That's the whole movie, aside from a half-hearted subplot involving a couple of villainous big game poachers. You'd think that once the family settles down, "Roar" would start to tell a real story about something more substantial, but instead we get a cheerful, hopeful song accompanying a montage of the family interacting with the animals, and... the movie ends. (Just as well. At this point, I really didn't want it to keep going.)
Said to have been a pet project (you should forgive the term) of Tippi Hedren and her then- husband, Noel Marshall, "Roar" reportedly cost $17 million, much of it their own money, and earned back only a fraction of its cost. It's certainly a sincere and heartfelt plea for wildlife conservation. But as I sat there, the film's opening disclaimer about how only "untrained animals" were used kept rattling in my brain.
Untrained animals. It was alarming to see all these lovingly filmed scenes of lions playing (i.e. fighting) with each other. And seeing the actors let themselves be swarmed or pursued by the lions was downright heart-pounding. (I soon lost track of how many times I silently shouted, "Are you crazy?") "Roar" was a true family affair, with Noel Marshall's real-life sons and Tippi Hedren's real-life daughter, Melanie Griffith, playing the kids. (If I ever get to meet Melanie Griffith, who here plays a character named "Melanie," I must ask her about the scene in which she allowed one of the lions to pin her to the floor, face-down.)
"Roar" seems to tell you that lions are just a bunch of oversized pussycats with big, sharp claws - treat 'em right, don't let them sense fear, stand up to them when necessary, let them lick and paw you to their hearts' content, and everything will be just fine, the occasional bad scratch notwithstanding. The thing is, just about everyone connected with this production was injured by the animals at one point or another, including the actors. (By unhappy happenstance, I saw this film about a month after the death in South Africa of Hollywood visual effects editor Katherine Chappell, who'd made the awful mistake of rolling down a car window during a visit to a lion park to take a picture, and was attacked and fatally bitten by a lioness.)
Perhaps instead of making a "real" movie, Hedren and Marshall would have done better to have made a documentary about the wildlife they obviously admire so much. And speaking of documentary, if they had done a behind-the-scenes film about the making of this movie, that film could very well have been much more interesting than "Roar."
By the way, "Roar" was beautifully photographed in Metrocolor. As in MGM. As in... lion? (Coincidence? Of course, but I couldn't resist.)