Cazador blanco, corazón negro

On one level, this film is a failure: It's a fictionalized knock-off of the behind-the-scenes machinations of the making of "The African Queen" with Bogart & Hepburn directed by John Huston. This surface level is not so enthralling. On a second level, the level I believe the artists really wanted to put across, it isn't so enthralling either. Nevertheless, they are to be commended for attempting something unusual: An effort to show the creative process -- and the fears lurking within barring the fruition of art, often at great costs to health and personal relationships. In ranking Eastwood's films, this film falls below "Unforgiven", "Million Dollar Baby", "Bird" or "The Bridges of Madison County", but the subtext here raises its status. A must-see for the serious artist or wannabe.

One of Clint Eastwood's most unjustly-neglected movies... he directed and stars as a cranky, strong-willed movie director (he's actually playing the real-life John Huston, though his character is called "Wilson" in the movie... and the book it was based on). In Africa to direct an action-comedy ("The African Queen" in real life) Wilson throws the project into turmoil when he suddenly becomes obsessed with hunting and killing an elephant. "It's not a crime... it's bigger than that... it's a SIN," he says by way of justification. It takes a while to get used to Clint trying to play John Huston... trying to talk in a different style of voice than we're used to hearing... but the dialog and story are so compelling that you forget that Clint really is the wrong guy for this role. And yet, by the time the movie reaches it's devastating final line... Clint has made the character his own. As far as Clint's directing work goes... I would rank this film right after "Unforgiven"!

I must admit that Clint Eastwood was the main reason why I watched this movie. I'm already quite familiar with his work as an actor and as a director - even though I still haven't seen his biggest success "Million Dollar Baby" yet - and overall I can enjoy his work. Does that mean that I love all his movies? No, certainly not, but most of the time, he's the one who saves the movie, even when it isn't all that good. Knowing that he directed this movie and played a major role in it, only made it more interesting for me.

"White Hunter Black Heart" shows how the world famous movie director John Huston is planning on making a trip to Africa, where he will shoot his next movie. But despite his reputation of being a good director, he is also a very difficult man to work with. He doesn't want to make any concessions towards the producers and to make things worse he is also more interested in shooting the biggest elephant possible than shooting his movie and there is nothing or no-one who can bring him to other ideas...

Overall this is a good movie, although I must say that the beginning didn't do it for me. At first I had the feeling that the characters weren't all that real. They felt too much like caricatures, almost making this movie feel like a comedy, which it certainly isn't. That's also the reason why I wasn't exactly thinking about giving this movie a very high rating. But I always make that final decision at the end of the movie and I admit that the end of the movie was a lot better than the beginning. Not only was it very clear that John Wilson felt himself more at ease in Africa than in England, his reactions after the hunt also showed that this wasn't yet another typical type of quiet tough guy without any human emotions that Clint Eastwood plays so often. I really appreciated that in this movie. What I also liked was the entire 'behind the scenes of a classic movie' idea. OK, if you regularly buy a DVD, then you know from the extra's how a movie is shot. But that's how it is done today with all the modern techniques, camera's, lighting equipment. They didn't have all that in the fifties and it's nice to see how it was done back then.

Overall this is an enjoyable movie that offers some good acting and an interesting story. If the beginning had been more believable, this might well have become one of my all-time favorites. Now I give it a rating in between 7/10 and 7.5/10.

This film is based on a book by Peter Viertel who worked with Huston on a number of projects. He shares writing credit with Huston on We Were Strangers. The book and film give us Viertel's version of what it was like to work with the great John Huston on The African Queen. Viertel finally bailed out and Huston and cast somehow managed to create a masterpiece. Eastwood plays the fictional representation of Huston to the hilt, creating one of his most memorable roles. This is a film that you have to work at. If you know a little of the history, though, it is well worth seeing.

This film is billed as being 'loosely based' on an episode in the life of John Huston. 'Loosely based' is a misnomer as this film couldn't be about anything BUT John Huston, right down to Clint's attempt to imitate Huston's arch quasi-British-accented drawl. The episode is Huston's sojourn in Africa to direct a movie whose title is never mentioned in the film (the closest is when Clint-cum-Huston, asked the title, replies, "I don't know. The African something-or-other." A bit too coy). This pretense of not knowing the film wears thinner and thinner as we see the spitting image of the boat that was used in "The African Queen", and as two stars arrive who look and sound just like Kate Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart (but are not so named in the film). The 'Bogart' character, on the first day of filming, even wears a costume exactly like that H.B. wore in the movie. This is a docudrama about the making of "The African Queen" that is pretending not to be a docudrama about the making of "The African Queen." What is it pretending to be? I don't really know, as it is just a disjointed series of episodes that show us - I guess - what a wild and crazy guy John Huston was. But he is not, at least in this movie, wild and crazy enough to sustain a whole movie. It has what appears to be intended as a 'tragic' ending, but it falls flat. There doesn't seem to be any point to the whole thing. Skip it. See "The African Queen" again instead.